Tonight I come to you shortly after a long session of railing at the walls over the government's decision to try to charge me eighty pounds to get a piece of paper in nice red binding that will let me leave the country. I'm not of the mindset that the government should be the one to foot the bill for printing the one document that will let me take my money out of the floundering economy and spend it on sangria somewhere on the Costa Brava, but I cannot for the life of me imagine just what about such a relatively simple document could possibly cost eighty pounds. I know the argument is that it pays for the government's crack team of researchers to ring up my guarantor and ask them if I'm really Osama bin Laden, but if I was Osama, wouldn't the government want me to bugger off to the Costas for a couple of weeks and have a bit of a calm down? More importantly, you're receiving my application posted from deep within the home counties, so if I am indeed the world's most wanted terrorist, then I'm already here, and you probably have bigger problems than whether or not I can go to France for the day just by calling myself Steve.
I think my problem is, at it's heart, that I remember the passport service and all it's related arms as being the gateway to the world. There was a time where you paid your money, you got your shiny leatherette little book and off you went, but in this era of every household apparently harbouring at least four illegal immigrants in the ceiling and Islamic extremists setting up home in Basingstoke, the whole government department dedicated to letting people in and out of the country has turned into a soulless, suffocating entity composed of pure bother.
A case in point: A friend of mine, over from China, had to spend fully three hours on the phone to the Home Office trying to renew her visa, only to be told that they had rescheduled the meeting about rescheduling her meeting, and could she please ring back next week. Next week indeed, while they sit in what I imagine to be ludicrously plush chairs with their thumbs wedged firmly up their bottoms and her visa quietly ticking it's way towards expiry.
It wouldn't be quite as galling if the visa served any real purpose, but it doesn't. I know it's supposed to prove who you are and what you're entitled to do, but the fact is that the minute the paper trail leaves these sures it becomes entirely useless. I know even less about China than I do about Scotland, but I fully expect that a country containing a third of the world's population isn't going to be all that hot on census keeping, particularly in more rural areas. She could, conceivably, be anyone. The best we can hope for is stamping her passport and hoping she doesn't explode.
The most ridiculous part of all, though, is the hoops you now have to jump through just to pay your eighty quid. Biometrics, iris scans and so on and so forth all entirely useless and an infuriating exercise in hand-waving in the name of security. Yes, wonderful, I know it's terrible that the militant wing of the RSPCA blew up four airliners somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, but at least we've got nice pretty close-up pictures of their eyeballs. How does this improve things over the old picture-matches-face method? If someone else has got my face, they've probably got my eyes as well, and if they haven't, then the man on the little desk should probably notice the empty gaping sockets fairly easily. Admittedly you could stump this system just by wearing sunglasses, but that would be entering the realms of fantasy.
Of course, if you ask me, and I'm probably wrong, these sorts of insane demands on me just so I can leave the country is all some sort of elaborate government ruse to get the jet-set to boost the economy by holidaying in Norfolk, a childhood experience which still haunts me to this day. It's a scheme set to fail.
Thanks to the miracles of modern telecommunications, everyone now knows everyone else in the entire world. Half the channels on my infeasibly expensive digital TV package are travel programmes broadcasting live from Mauritius and other earth-bound Edens, and thanks to my big mouth and the wonders of the internet, there are people in New Jersey who are aware that they should never, ever holiday in Norfolk, even if they did think I was talking about the one in Virginia. People all across the world are now aware that two weeks in Norfolk is roughly analogous to a fortnight in Colditz. People want to go on holiday and see aszure blue seas and swim with dolphins, and all I can remember from my time there was an oil rig and a miffed-looking seal. It might contribute thousands of pounds back to the British economy if we could all forsake our fortnight in Benidorm for two weeks in a caravan park in Great Yarmouth, but I don't care, I wouldn't inflict that on any of you. It's about as much fun as being drowned in peat.
Holidays? Give me long-haul or give me death.
I think my problem is, at it's heart, that I remember the passport service and all it's related arms as being the gateway to the world. There was a time where you paid your money, you got your shiny leatherette little book and off you went, but in this era of every household apparently harbouring at least four illegal immigrants in the ceiling and Islamic extremists setting up home in Basingstoke, the whole government department dedicated to letting people in and out of the country has turned into a soulless, suffocating entity composed of pure bother.
A case in point: A friend of mine, over from China, had to spend fully three hours on the phone to the Home Office trying to renew her visa, only to be told that they had rescheduled the meeting about rescheduling her meeting, and could she please ring back next week. Next week indeed, while they sit in what I imagine to be ludicrously plush chairs with their thumbs wedged firmly up their bottoms and her visa quietly ticking it's way towards expiry.
It wouldn't be quite as galling if the visa served any real purpose, but it doesn't. I know it's supposed to prove who you are and what you're entitled to do, but the fact is that the minute the paper trail leaves these sures it becomes entirely useless. I know even less about China than I do about Scotland, but I fully expect that a country containing a third of the world's population isn't going to be all that hot on census keeping, particularly in more rural areas. She could, conceivably, be anyone. The best we can hope for is stamping her passport and hoping she doesn't explode.
The most ridiculous part of all, though, is the hoops you now have to jump through just to pay your eighty quid. Biometrics, iris scans and so on and so forth all entirely useless and an infuriating exercise in hand-waving in the name of security. Yes, wonderful, I know it's terrible that the militant wing of the RSPCA blew up four airliners somewhere in the mid-Atlantic, but at least we've got nice pretty close-up pictures of their eyeballs. How does this improve things over the old picture-matches-face method? If someone else has got my face, they've probably got my eyes as well, and if they haven't, then the man on the little desk should probably notice the empty gaping sockets fairly easily. Admittedly you could stump this system just by wearing sunglasses, but that would be entering the realms of fantasy.
Of course, if you ask me, and I'm probably wrong, these sorts of insane demands on me just so I can leave the country is all some sort of elaborate government ruse to get the jet-set to boost the economy by holidaying in Norfolk, a childhood experience which still haunts me to this day. It's a scheme set to fail.
Thanks to the miracles of modern telecommunications, everyone now knows everyone else in the entire world. Half the channels on my infeasibly expensive digital TV package are travel programmes broadcasting live from Mauritius and other earth-bound Edens, and thanks to my big mouth and the wonders of the internet, there are people in New Jersey who are aware that they should never, ever holiday in Norfolk, even if they did think I was talking about the one in Virginia. People all across the world are now aware that two weeks in Norfolk is roughly analogous to a fortnight in Colditz. People want to go on holiday and see aszure blue seas and swim with dolphins, and all I can remember from my time there was an oil rig and a miffed-looking seal. It might contribute thousands of pounds back to the British economy if we could all forsake our fortnight in Benidorm for two weeks in a caravan park in Great Yarmouth, but I don't care, I wouldn't inflict that on any of you. It's about as much fun as being drowned in peat.
Holidays? Give me long-haul or give me death.
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