I'm a Brit. I know all about standing in line. It's instilled into us at a very young age. There's all kinds of etiquette involved that I won't go into here, but let's just say that we've got it down to a fine art form over here, and deviating from the 'rules' has been known to cause all manner of social problems.

My French neighbours across the Channel though, they always seem to be much more laid-back about that kind of thing (in my limited knowledge of them, admittedly). However, on a recent trip to Paris I was bemused to discover that the art of queuing, Parisian-style, seems to have gone above and beyond anything I've ever experienced in my own country.

It was past 6 o'clock and I realized I hadn't eaten all day so I found a welcoming patisserie in St Germain and bought a croissant. It took hours. I went inside and it was extremely busy. There were two counters. One with fancy cakes and one with plain breads, croissants and sandwiches. I was in the fancy cakes queue but didn't realize that I could only purchase fancy cakes in this line until I'd been standing in it for about five minutes. So I had to remove myself and go to the back of the other line. When I finally got to the front, I ordered my croissant. The man asked if I would like it heated up - I said no, thanks, cold is fine. He wandered off and came back with a ticket. Turned out I had to take this ticket to the woman on the fancy cakes counter. I tried to ask, in my failing French, if I could not just pay him for the croissant? No, I had to take the ticket to the other woman. So I got back in the fancy cakes queue, now going out the door, and waited my turn.

About three hundred years later I eventually made it to the front of this queue and handed the woman my ticket, along with my two Euros. She took the small piece of paper from my hand, looked at it, took a rubber stamp from the pocket of her apron, placed it on a little red sponge and then pressed it down firmly on my ticket. I looked at her and thought this cannot be happening but it was. And I had to take my freshly stamped ticket, my verification of having paid my two Euros, back to the croissant man in order to retrieve my purchase. So I trudged over to the back of the other line, thinking if I'd gone to the bistro next door I could have had a three course meal and a coffee by now and waited patiently for my simple little croissant. I consoled myself by thinking that if I'd asked him to heat it up it would've been cold by now anyway. Finally, I took my treat in my hands, walked outside, unwrapped it and tucked in. NO! It had, of all things, a sausage inside it. It really wasn't what I was expecting at all. I have to be in the right frame of mind for sausage, know what I'm saying.