Food queues

Oh how we pitied those poor burghers of the Eastern Europe Communist regimes in the 1980s and earlier. The burghers who had to queue for hours to enter supermarkets to purchase the odd loaf of bread or a can of tinned food forlornly displayed on near empty shelves.

Those indignities didn't befall we smug residents comfortably ensconced in our First World Western democracies, did they?

Fast forward to 2016.

This is a queue in the affluent Sydney suburb of Woollahra two mornings before Christmas Day.

Of course, this is not a food shortage queue. This is a queue for the fashionable shopper. The ones who want to purchase their Christmas meat from a shiny, fashionable, expensive butchery where the word 'shortage' is never uttered nor understood.

In case you want to be a part of this nonsense, the name of the butchery is Victor Churchill. Those who reached the head of the queue this morning were greeted by a gentleman wearing tails and a top hat (of course) and a young lady who could take their order and swipe their credit card, all before they were admitted through the hallowed doors.

I wasn't in the vicinity for the butchery or the queue. I was headed to the chicken takeaway store next door.