Dear Sirs, I'm in the process of renewing my passport, and still cannot believe how is it that Sky Television has my address and telephone number and knows that I bought a bleeding satellite dish from them back in 1988, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was bloody born and on what date. Do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my pension book. It's on all the income tax forms I've filed for the past 30 years. It is on my National Health card. My driving licence. My car insurance. On the last eight damn passports I've had. It's on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years. All those insufferable census forms. Would somebody please take note, once and for all, that my mother's name is Mary Anne, my father's name is Robert and I'd be absolutely astounded if that WOULD ever change between now and when I die!! I apologise, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You send the application to my house, then you ask me for my bleeding address!! What is going on? Do you have a gang of neanderthal arseholes workin' there? Look at my damn picture.Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for .... sakes. I just want to go and park my .... on some sandy beach somewhere. And would someone please tell me, why would you give a .... whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something wierd to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, you'd be the last ....... people I'd want to tell! Well, I have to go now,'cause I have to go to the other end of the poxy city to get another ....... copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of £30. 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? Nooooooooooooo, that'd be too damn easy and maybe make sense. You'd rather have us running all over the ....in' place like chickens with our heads cut off, then WE have to find some arsehole to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (bureaucratic ....in' morons) Hey, do you know why we couldn't smile if we wanted to? Because we're totally pissed off! Signed An Irate Citizen P.S. Remember what I said above about the picture and getting someone to confirm that it's me? Well, my family has been in this country since 1776 ... I have served in the military for something over 30 years and have had full security clearances over 25 of those years enabling me to undertake highly secretive missions all over the world. However, I have to get someone 'important' to verify who I am - you know, someone like my doctor ..WHO WAS BORN AND RAISED IN FRIGGIN` PAKISTAN!
Interesting, I renewed my UK passport just over a week ago and had no problems. I do not spend much time in the UK, and my old UK passport was getting full and needed replacement. My last 3 replacement passports each took about 4 days to issue at overseas British embassies. However now the application and old passport have to be returned to one of the regional centres which AIM to issue the new passport within 4 weeks of ACKNOWLEDGING RECEIPT of the application. . . . No way do I want to be abroad without my passport for even one week! So on a recent UK visit I headed over to Liverpool for the "Premium one day service", costing £137 for a Jumbo 48 page passport. There was no requirement for any birth certificate, or other documents, all that I needed was: Completed application form (easy) Two photographs (no countersigning required) My old passport No difficulty getting an appointment, I phoned from Bangkok ten days in advance, the lady was very helpful. What day? What time? I asked for Friday at 12:30 and there was an appointment slot free. Excellent! On the day I turned up early as I am not familiar with Liverpool. However I was lucky and found the passport office within ten minutes of arriving at Lime Street station. It was a cold morning, So with an hour to kill before my appointment I headed off in search of a coffee or something. A sign in a window said "Speciality Pork Pie and any Pint for £4.70". Next to it was a Camra good beer guide sign. Awesome. The process at the passport office was fast, polite and efficient. So was the service and real ale at the Lion Tavern. I had 4 hours to wait before collecting my new passport! I like Liverpool Only bad point of the day was overcrowded train carriages.
If you replace your passport before it expires, they will carry over up to nine months of validity from the old passport. So my new passport is valid for ten years and nine months.
Thanks for the tip, think I will update mine in 3 months or so.. Won't need it just yet, but it would be nice to get it out of the way.
I aquired my last passport from Liverpool. Stuck the application in one day and went back for the new one a few days later, as I recall. Combined it with a cultural trip to the local art gallery etc.
