Liverpool FC Forum

by **Roger Red Hat** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 11:26 am

Dear Minister,
I'm in the process of renewing my passport, but I am a total loss to understand or believe the hoops I am being asked to jump through.

How is it that Bert Smith of T.V. Rentals Basingstoke, has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a satellite dish from them back in 1994, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date?

How come that nice West African immigrant chappy who comes round every Thursday night with his DVD rentals van, can tell me every film or video I have had out since he started his business up eleven years ago, yet you still want me to remind you of my last three jobs, two of which were with contractors working for the government?

How come the T.V. detector van can tell if my T.V. is on, what channel I am watching and whether I have paid my licence or not, and yet if I win the government run lottery, they have no idea I have won or where I am and will keep the bloody money to themselves if I fail to claim in good time.
Do you people do this by hand?

You have my birth date on numerous files you hold on me, including the one with all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30-odd years. It's on my health insurance card, my driver's licence, on the last four passports I've had, on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out, before being allowed off the planes and boats over the last 30 years, and all those insufferable census forms that are done every ten years and the electoral registration forms I have to complete, by law, every time our lords and masters are up for re-election.

Would somebody please take note, once and for all, I was born in Maidenhead on the 4th of March 1957, my mother's name is Mary, her maiden name was Reynolds, my father's name is Robert, and I'd be absolutely astounded if that ever changed between now and the day I die!

I apologise Minister. I'm obviously not myself this morning. ,But between you and me, I have simply had enough! You mail the application to my house, then you ask me for my address. ,What is going on? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to activate the Fifth Reich for God's sake! I just want to go and park my weary backside on a sunny, sandy beach for a couple of week's well-earned rest, away from all this sh!t.

Well, I have to go now, because I have to go to back to Salisbury and get another copy of my birth certificate, because you lost the last one. AND to the tune of 60 quid! What a racket THAT is!! Would it be so complicated, to have all the services in the same spot to assist in the issuance of a new passport the same day? But nooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the place like chickens with our heads cut off, then find some tw@t to confirm that it's really me on the goddamn picture ---- you know...... the one where we're not allowed to smile in in case we look as if we are enjoying the process!
Hey, you know why we can't smile? 'Cause we're totally jacked off!

I served in the armed forces for more than 25 years, including over ten years at the Ministry of Defence in London. I have had security clearances which allowed me to sit in the Cabinet Office, five seats away from the Prime Minister, while he was being briefed on the first Gulf War and I have been doing volunteer work for the British Red Cross ever since I left the Services. However, I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am --------- you know, someone like my doctor..........................who, before he got his medical degree 6 months ago WAS LIVING IN PAKISTAN...............!!

Yours sincerely,
An Irate British Citizen.

by **red37** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 11:33 am

love it. My neural pathways are tingling in agreement.

That is - about the state of it though in all seriousness. F*cking joke this country.

by **Number 9** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 11:33 am

Funny but all so true!

by **Judge** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 11:54 am

just fill the fucking forms out you moaning b'stard

by **GRAHAM01** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 12:14 pm

i have all this to look forward to, but i have to do it bloody five times one for me the misses and 3 kids

costs and arm and a leg just to do it as well

pi*s taking :censored:

by **Bad Bob** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 12:42 pm

Passports are a chore to get in Canada too. The thing I don't get is why you have to provide the picture. When I get a driver's license they take the photo themselves right there in the license bureau so why can't the passport people do that? I had an argument with the passport clerk a few years back because, apparently, my passport photo didn't have a white enough background. I had gone to a photography studio that specializes in passport photos and yet their background didn't meet official standards. The fact that I had to drive 2.5 hours to the nearest passport office only to learn that my photo didn't pass spec and that I'd have to have it redone before I could come back had me raging. And, back then, you had to have "guarantors" (some upstanding citizens) sign your photos to verify that you were who you said you were...which meant I couldn't just nip down to the local photo studio and get new ones done the same day. No, I had to drive all the way home, do it all over again and hope the background was white enough this time. Fecking does my head in, this stuff! :angry:

by **woof woof !** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 1:39 pm

Some years ago I had to make an emergency application for a new passport ( I'd received word that my terminally ill mum resident in south africa had just days left to live).Unfortunately being new to the area I had no "upstanding citizen" (doctor , policeman etc) to sign the back of my new photo's, nevertheless I went along to the passport office here in London armed with all the relevant documentation including my original birth certificate, expired passport plus all of the other expired passports I'd ever held since 1962 and as further supporting evidence of my identity, bank statements, utility bills, drivers license etc etc.

Despite all of this the B'stards still refused to give me a new passport ! Only after a 30 minute rant by me and a phone call by them to the my mothers hospice in South Africa did they reluctantly give me a passport, valid for six months only !. All of this was pre 9/11 and the subsequent paranoia that followed.
Unf'uckingbelievable !

by **Roger Red Hat** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:11 pm

thats a raw deal woof

fking do gooders.

by **Sabre** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:14 pm

it's difficult to get a passport there!

Here the only difficult thing is that you have to make a terrible queue due to inmigrants, but other than that it's easier than the national identity card and you get it in 24 hours.

by **taff** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:30 pm

Queue or a huge form in passport office no

There are pubs in Cardiff docks that issue passports faster than the government

by **woof woof !** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:46 pm

taff wrote:Queue or a huge form in passport office no

There are pubs in Cardiff docks that issue passports faster than the government

here's one Taff made earlier.

by **Bad Bob** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:53 pm

Typical.

Massive Passport Canada data leak
Posted by Cory Doctorow, December 5, 2007 2:06 AM | permalink

The Passport Canada website has a grave security flaw that allows easy access to the personal information (birth certificate, driver's license, dates of birth, social insurance numbers) of passport applicants.

The breach was discovered last week by an Ontario man completing his own passport application. He found he could easily view the applications of others by altering one character in the Internet address displayed by his Web browser.

"I was expecting the site to tell me that I couldn't do that," said Jamie Laning of Huntsville. "I'm just curious about these things so I tried it, and boom, there was somebody else's name and somebody else's data."

by **woof woof !** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:54 pm

And here's the one he sold me

by **metalhead** » Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:55 pm

stop moaning you lot

just do what I do, send someone to do your passport.

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Passport application - How stoopid is this country

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