People waste 273 days in a lifetime stuck in queues - and people in Oxford could be losing even more time if research by the Oxford Mail is anything to go by.

After hearing from readers about some of the lengthy queues in city centre shops and businesses, we decided to test it out for ourselves.

Our investigation followed research by Visa UK who found that on average people spend about 18 minutes a day in queues.

I found that while it took almost three hours to do just a few routine things, half that time was spent waiting in queues.

My first stop was the Post Office in St Aldates, Oxford.

I joined the queue at 11.17am yesterday and the barriers were already bulging with customers waiting to send packages or pay their car tax.

We reached a service desk at 11.48am after queuing for 31 minutes.

Also in the queue was Ewan Mackay, 26, from Cowley, who had been waiting patiently for the same length of time.

He said: "The queues in here are always long and take up a lot of time. Half an hour waiting is what everybody has come to expect, sometimes to the point of giving up altogether."

Next I had to pick up some photographs from Boots Photographic Studio in Cornmarket Street. I lined up on the second floor at noon and spent 25 minutes waiting to be served.

No-one from Boots was available to comment on the length of the queue when I contacted them.

It was then lunchtime, and I joined a queue to buy a sandwich at Brothers Cafe in the Covered Market.

After 15 minutes I asked customer Jayne Poultney, 40, from Wheatley, if she came to Brother's often. She said: "It's a very popular cafe and many tourists come to the Covered Market.

"I think they need more staff to prepare sandwiches at lunchtime to reduce the amount of time we have to wait while they make them."

Manager Andrew Bowles said: "It's a bit concerning that you had to wait so long, normally I would say people wait 15 seconds.

"We try to staff it as well as we can, but if there's a coach-load of tourists it can cause delays."

Next stop was Debenhams in Magdalen Street.

I joined the queue for the ladies toilets at 1pm and did not reach the front until 1.15pm.

Hayley Lowis, 34, from Cutteslowe, tried to think of somewhere else to take her daughter Freya, four.

She said: "We often have to wait about 10-15 minutes in the queue before she can go to the toilet. It's too long for an adult, let alone a young child to wait."

The duty manager of Debenhams declined to comment.

From 11.20am until 1.15pm I waited one hour and 26 minutes in queues around the city centre.