The processing centres in Hong Kong and everywhere else as far as I can see have all been closed and now the only option is to apply and pay online and then send your passport, photo and form to HMPO Liverpool. This is not cheap. EMS from here to there (trackable) costs about £10. You then have to pay for processing and their expensive (non trackable) courier back to you. Another £150 near enough.
They say a simple renewal will take at least 3 weeks and maybe more during busy times. I thought that January would not be a busy time and indeed I can't believe it is busy compared to July/August. After about 6 weeks had passed I called their tracking number - no email access for non UK residents. You finally get put through to a very busy call centre somewhere in Northern Ireland from the sound of their accents. You give all your details and they tell you they are not actually HMPO at all and have no information other than the application has been received which you knew anyway from JPO tracking and the HMPO website which of course looks as if was written as a welfare to work project and contains precious little actual information.
So they agree to generate a callback request to HMPO who promise to call you back within 72 hours. No such call back happens but just about on the stroke of 72 hours the status of your application on the aforementioned website magically changes from "being processed" to "despatched". No other details of course.
Thankfully my days of flipping around the world every few weeks for work are long behind me, The Nankai Trough remains quiet for the time being and nothing happened in my family but a lot of people are going to get screwed by this. Being without your passport for the best part of 8 weeks is a serious worry if you don't live in your home country.
And if it is like this now what's it going to be like in peak season? Come back the archaic system at the British Embassy in Tokyo - all is forgiven and I take all my unkind words back.