IN THE minds of many of our European neighbours, Britons are obsessed with two things: the weather and queuing.

Our keenness on knowing what may or may not fall from the skies (and when) is surely excusable in these times of climate change, which see floods in July and lawn mowing in December.

And the sight of a lengthy queue – be it overnight outside a department store sale or on a grossly overcrowded train in the hope of securing a seat – is as much a part of British life as Big Ben or cask conditioned beer.

When we choose to queue for something, outside the store for a bargain in the example above, we consider it good use of our time and a worthy endeavour.

When we are made to queue for something, things are different.

This week, an organisation with a notorious record for making us queue to buy its services has been heavily criticised for its customer service ethos and poor standards.

A consumer watchdog has called on the Post Office to reduce lengthy queues and says too many businesses assume customers are happy to queue.

And it may not always be queuing in person that causes frayed tempers and resentment.

Businesses suffer when they make their customers form "e" queues on the end of telephone lines or in email dialogue.

There is a lesson here in providing a very basic level of customer service.

At least a fifth of Crown Post Office customers have to wait for more than 10 minutes for service, according to this week's report.

Who on earth deems that acceptable?