Boy in front of me in this morning's queue said: "the trouble is, it's my competitive spirit. It catches up with me every time." Just so.

I limped away from this morning's queue with a chilled nose, feet like ice and a cold, cold body. Notwithstanding Greta's animal embrace.

I learn that there's a sort of dark mystery to these queues. There are the fools / the optimistic who pitch up with no sense that there is any art to this strange system. There are the queue elite who have all the numbers in their heads: quantities of seats per theatre, multiple purchase options, optimum arrival times. Then there are those - and I clump myself into this category - who have a glimmering suspicion that they should try harder but are a little bit coy about displaying any sort of "inside" knowledge.

Chatting to a couple of fellow queue-ers at last night's show, it appeared that Jerusalem is The Problem Show (for the stubborn on-the-day-ers at any rate. And as it's sold out seemingly now and for always, these are the only ticket options available.) I heard a dispiriting story about a man who started queueing at 4am. (Tickets on sale at 10am.) He was too late to get a ticket.

Then The Woman Who Taught The Identical Chinese Children (and nightmarishly was sat right next to me last night - I wondered if the guilt at my online mockery flashed across my face when I recognised her) told me that she'd arrived at quarter to nine and got an excellent seat. Because there are fourteen seats on the front row of some bit of the theatre, reportedly, that afford an excellent view. And then there are seven others that are barely worth having as you can't see anything. At all.

(That theatres get away with this makes me squirm slightly. But it didn't prevent me joining The Queue.)

So this morning, I rose at seven. Seven! It was still more or less dark when I left my temporary home. The tube behaved. And I walked as fast as you might without actually running from tube to theatre.

The Queue snaked around the block. At half past eight. Half past eight!

Remember what I said about observing but being too shy to ruthlessly observe The Wisdom Of The Queue? ICCW (Identical Chinese Children Woman) had instructed me to count those in front of me. If there were more than fourteen ticket requests in The Queue (given the sightless seats), I should give up and go home.

Two shows on a Wednesday. ("Don't leave it til Friday" said ICCW, "everyone has the same idea. And think of all the tourists. It'll be hopeless.") I had my heart set on the matinee as the show lasts three hours. I thought this would maximise my chances of not sleeping. But I was graciously resigned to the fact that I might have no choice.

So I counted the queue. I needed no more than fourteen tickets times two minus one in front of me. I promptly forgot the number (it was more people than tickets) and joined the queue thinking (again): damned if I'm getting up so early and not etc etc.

It was drizzling but only very finely. Two beautiful boys in suits in front of me along with an exotic looking girl who turned out to be an actress in waiting. No-one behind me for a long, long time (which enraged me. Nothing like feeling you're the stupidest in the queue). Big plops of rain dripped from the guttering above onto my book. I waited.

Waited.

A procession of seventy brown horses trotted past.

Waited. Trying valiantly to screen out the stereo chatter (at last some (less attractive but interestingly, also young) people behind me). Luckily my book ending wasn't remotely moving (Generation A, Douglas Coupland) so I wasn't left in an awkward crying in a queue situation.

Ten a.m. The Queue began to creep forward. I was ambivalent by then. The thrill of the chase - the length of the queue - the mizzle drizzle - had worn me down. ICCW's words echoed in my head: "I see a lot of plays and don't get me wrong, it's brilliantly acted, but the script's a bit rubbish. I don't know what he's trying to say." I thought energetically about how character-forming queueing can be.

Then we're inside the building. Well, barely. We're admitted into a kind of antechamber, housing a ticket desk. I suppose so they don't have to admit The Poor into the venerable interior. A lucky few are allowed to violate the foyer to attend a parallel ticket desk. We shuffle forward.

Mutters run up and down the queue about availability. Matinees. Evening shows. This number or that number left. People stepping out of the theatre doors clutching their prizes.

Three tickets left supposedly. Me and the two besuited boys and the wannabe actress to go. "I'll only get one ticket" exclaims exotic girl, opening her cat-like eyes wide at the besuited boys. "I couldn't queue for all this time with you and then take two tickets, knowing that would only leave one for you both." The boys hum with gratitude.

Cat Girl is admitted to the inner sanctum. "Did you get one?" asks one Besuited. "Well, I had to get two" she shrugs, face full of sorrow. "There were two sitting together so that wouldn't have been any good to you as you wouldn't have been sitting together." Oh, how she sits in judgement.

Somehow the extra ticket is gone. Besuited Boys go forward. Only returns. £52:50 or £75. Besuiteds look crestfallen and turn away. "I just can't justify paying that" says one to the other. A little shred of my cold cold heart breaks for their middle class anguish.

I'm next up, thinking - fifty quids - for a show I don't even know if I want to see - that I've only queued for out of some kind of crazed notion that I'll otherwise miss out. And then I hear ICCW's sincere as the Christmas spirit voice in my head. Her parting words to me last night after the show: "I really hope that you get a ticket for Jerusalem tomorrow. And have a great Christmas."

ICCW would've wanted it. I hand over my credit card.