On 16/04/2013 00:04, The Other Mike wrote:
On Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:45:47 +0100, Nightjar
wrote:

On 15/04/2013 15:31, Jethro_uk wrote:
....
There's definitely some slightly less-than-obvious issues at play with
supermarket queues. My wife tends to plump for checkouts which look like
there's not too much on the belt. Myself, I would rather wait a second
for a crowded belt to become free with only one customer in front, than
have half an empty belt with 3 customers in front. That's because in my
experience, the overhead of queueing is predicated far more on number of
customers than number of items.

I also avoid queuing behind any single older ladies

I go for the checkout operators I know to be efficient.

9 times out of 10 the fastest seem to be either Chinese or Indian.

Not many of either around here and what there are seem either to be
running their own shops or restaurants.

Avoid fat
ones, old ones,blokes,

You've just ruled out all the operators in one supermarket I use.

schoolgirl types, the disabled.

and, by including those, at least one other.

Avoid queues with
mothers with kids, oaps, fat people, alcoholics.

You won't be behind me then.

....
Fortunately I don't shop at any supermarket on a regular basis

I use several, as none stocks everything I like.

Colin Bignell