You Don't Really Need Your Passport Do You?

[inflames]

Without embassies or consulates there wouldn't be diplotrash.

[Christoff]

What is this dribble?

[chibaka]

After the new ambassador arrived, a mini golf range appeared in the grounds. That probably keeps him busy.

When he's not in the swimming pool they conveniently have there...

[legion]

He is certainly not checking the usability of the website, I've got to renew my daughter's passport and it is a confusing circular wild goose chase just to find the page with the application form. It's almost as if they are making this as difficult as possible.

[Wibble]

He is certainly not checking the usability of the website, I've got to renew my daughter's passport and it is a confusing circular wild goose chase just to find the page with the application form. It's almost as if they are making this as difficult as possible.

It has to be on purpose; they couldn't be that incompetent. The .gov.uk website project has managed to reduce the amount of useful information online and make you jump through a series of idiot hoops to not be given the full information. It's maddening.
Incidentally, if you can wait until 7/4/14, the passport fee will be lots cheaper.

[wagyl]

Incidentally, if you can wait until 7/4/14, the passport fee will be lots cheaper.

Wait a little longer, and Scotland may have her freedom.

[legion]

He is certainly not checking the usability of the website, I've got to renew my daughter's passport and it is a confusing circular wild goose chase just to find the page with the application form. It's almost as if they are making this as difficult as possible.

It has to be on purpose; they couldn't be that incompetent. The .gov.uk website project has managed to reduce the amount of useful information online and make you jump through a series of idiot hoops to not be given the full information. It's maddening.
Incidentally, if you can wait until 7/4/14, the passport fee will be lots cheaper.

thanks but can't wait, we are going to the UK on July

why will it be cheaper?

[legion]

Incidentally, if you can wait until 7/4/14, the passport fee will be lots cheaper.

Wait a little longer, and Scotland may have her freedom.

and I will have another passport, but I'm not sure about my kids, their births are registered in Scotland because mine is, but I don't know if this will get them citizenship.

[wagyl]

Incidentally, if you can wait until 7/4/14, the passport fee will be lots cheaper.

thanks but can't wait, we are going to the UK on July

why will it be cheaper?

look up, or click this link, same result. And incidentally yet another reason to write April rather than a numeral for the month.

[Wibble]

He is certainly not checking the usability of the website, I've got to renew my daughter's passport and it is a confusing circular wild goose chase just to find the page with the application form. It's almost as if they are making this as difficult as possible.

It has to be on purpose; they couldn't be that incompetent. The .gov.uk website project has managed to reduce the amount of useful information online and make you jump through a series of idiot hoops to not be given the full information. It's maddening.
Incidentally, if you can wait until 7/4/14, the passport fee will be lots cheaper.

thanks but can't wait, we are going to the UK on July

why will it be cheaper?

They are reducing the price as the processing/printing is all done in UK now.
Processing time is about 4 weeks, should be no problem to get it back by July if you wait a couple of weeks.

[Wage Slave]

They are reducing the price as the processing/printing is all done in UK now.
Processing time is about 4 weeks, should be no problem to get it back by July if you wait a couple of weeks.

I think you are right about a couple of weeks being OK but I am not so confident about 4 weeks processing time.

I did it in January and it took 53 days from posting to receipt of the new passports. Getting my old passports back took another 2 weeks or so on top of that.

[legion]

Sorry, I misread the date as July, never can remember the order. Thanks again, a great excuse to put off doing the paperwork.

The kids have Japanese passports too so worst case scenario is eldest daughter travels into the UK as a daughter of yamato

[kurogane]

Aren't you guys Citizens of the World yet????? Honestly, this Kolonial Klub mentality really is enduring. Hmmmph. This transethnic thing might have some legs.

Passports!!???? Meh.

[Wage Slave]

Globalites perhaps? Anyway, it's not often I can say this so I'm going to say it loud and proud....

I told you so!

Half a million people face ruined summer holidays as passport backlog causes chaos

Families face the threat of not being able to go on holiday as an overwhelmed Passport Office struggles to issue travel documents in time.
Up to 500,000 may not get their documents before their planned departure date as the under-staffed department struggles to deal with the annual surge in applications.
Labour and Tory MPs have warned that the service is in turmoil and say they have had hundreds of complaints from constituents about delays.
Making changes to passports or issuing new documents should be done within three to four weeks, but travellers are complaining it is taking twice as long.

more

The UK is so head bangingly predicable when it comes to an entirely foreseeable cock up.

[yanpa]

Surely the Big Society could provide spontaneous volunteer assistance to help reduce the burden on the state in this age of austerity, encourage self-reliance etc.?

[wagyl]

Are you encouraging these potential summer holidaymakers to swim to the Costa del Sol and avoid customs and immigration checks?

[yanpa]

Photographs of stacked passport application files stoke row over delays
Leaked pictures of documents piled up in Passport Office room usually used for meetings contradict denial of backlog
The Passport Office's claims that there is no backlog of travel documents in its offices was challenged on Tuesday night after photographs showed that hundreds of files, full of applications, have been stacked in a passport office room that is usually used for meetings.

The photographs, which were leaked to the Guardian, were taken in a second-floor conference room at the office's Liverpool branch on Tuesday, a source said. The room seems to have been hurriedly converted to store boxes of files. Staff say this is the first time that this room has been used to store files of applications, and it has forced them to hold meetings in a stationery cupboard.

Paul Pugh, the interim chief executive of the Passport Office, has maintained that there is no backlog of passports.

...the summer holiday misery continues...

[Wibble]

Photographs of stacked passport application files stoke row over delays
Leaked pictures of documents piled up in Passport Office room usually used for meetings contradict denial of backlog
The Passport Office's claims that there is no backlog of travel documents in its offices was challenged on Tuesday night after photographs showed that hundreds of files, full of applications, have been stacked in a passport office room that is usually used for meetings.

The photographs, which were leaked to the Guardian, were taken in a second-floor conference room at the office's Liverpool branch on Tuesday, a source said. The room seems to have been hurriedly converted to store boxes of files. Staff say this is the first time that this room has been used to store files of applications, and it has forced them to hold meetings in a stationery cupboard.

Paul Pugh, the interim chief executive of the Passport Office, has maintained that there is no backlog of passports.

...the summer holiday misery continues...

The photographs show hundreds of boxes of orange and white files stacked on tables. A source close to the Liverpool office said that there were 15 to 20 applications in each box, and that the orange boxes were overseas applications while the white boxes showed those from the UK.

Guess what colour most of the boxes are.

[yanpa]

The photographs show hundreds of boxes of orange and white files stacked on tables. A source close to the Liverpool office said that there were 15 to 20 applications in each box, and that the orange boxes were overseas applications while the white boxes showed those from the UK.

Guess what colour most of the boxes are.

Yeah... and a worrying number of commentators are unable to comprehend that British citizens may be resident outside of the country, and seem to think they are passport applications by potential immigrants, or "tax-avoiding expats".

[Wage Slave]

The photographs show hundreds of boxes of orange and white files stacked on tables. A source close to the Liverpool office said that there were 15 to 20 applications in each box, and that the orange boxes were overseas applications while the white boxes showed those from the UK.

Guess what colour most of the boxes are.

Yeah... and a worrying number of commentators are unable to comprehend that British citizens may be resident outside of the country, and seem to think they are passport applications by potential immigrants, or "tax-avoiding expats".

That struck me too. Thanks a lot. For you not having your passport means you might have to re-arrange your holiday. For me it could be ever so slightly more important when push comes to shove.

[Samurai_Jerk]

Yeah... and a worrying number of commentators are unable to comprehend that British citizens may be resident outside of the country, and seem to think they are passport applications by ... "tax-avoiding expats".

I'm glad to hear it's not just American commentators who think this way. Glad in a misery-loves-company sense.

[yanpa]

Yeah... and a worrying number of commentators are unable to comprehend that British citizens may be resident outside of the country, and seem to think they are passport applications by ... "tax-avoiding expats".

I'm glad to hear it's not just American commentators who think this way. Glad in a misery-loves-company sense.

Yeah, there's no shortage of people in the UK who don't really grok the whole "living abroad" concept. "Oh, you live in Japan, you must have a Japanese passport?" "Oh, you speak Japanese? You must be really clever" (yeah, at least as clever as a group of 120 million people who manage the same feat despite a fair number of them being spectacularly dumb).

[Samurai_Jerk]

Yeah... and a worrying number of commentators are unable to comprehend that British citizens may be resident outside of the country, and seem to think they are passport applications by ... "tax-avoiding expats".

I'm glad to hear it's not just American commentators who think this way. Glad in a misery-loves-company sense.

Yeah, there's no shortage of people in the UK who don't really grok the whole "living abroad" concept. "Oh, you live in Japan, you must have a Japanese passport?" "Oh, you speak Japanese? You must be really clever" (yeah, at least as clever as a group of 120 million people who manage the same feat despite a fair number of them being spectacularly dumb).

I'm surprise it's like that in the UK given your history of conquering and colonizing so much of the earth. It makes more sense in the US where our creation myth says that we're "the city upon a hill," the freest country in the world, and everyone wants to be an American.

[Coligny]

Yeah... and a worrying number of commentators are unable to comprehend that British citizens may be resident outside of the country, and seem to think they are passport applications by potential immigrants, or "tax-avoiding expats".

What gaves you such a high hope toward the guardian's readership IQ ?

At least I'm lucky... I know that when a comment is in French the amount of stupidity will always be suicide inducing...

[yanpa]

Yeah... and a worrying number of commentators are unable to comprehend that British citizens may be resident outside of the country, and seem to think they are passport applications by ... "tax-avoiding expats".

I'm glad to hear it's not just American commentators who think this way. Glad in a misery-loves-company sense.

Yeah, there's no shortage of people in the UK who don't really grok the whole "living abroad" concept. "Oh, you live in Japan, you must have a Japanese passport?" "Oh, you speak Japanese? You must be really clever" (yeah, at least as clever as a group of 120 million people who manage the same feat despite a fair number of them being spectacularly dumb).

I'm surprise it's like that in the UK given your history of conquering and colonizing so much of the earth.

It's an English-speaking island country with a lousy record in foreign language education and a population for whom "abroad" is a ferry trip to Calais for cheap booze or a couple of weeks on a tour package. That's a bit of an exaggeration, and I'm sure more people are going more places than ever before, but even then there's no real incentive for most people to step out of their little English-speaking bubble. Mind you, compared to the USA I'm sure the UK is a paragon of urbane sophisticated globalism

[kurogane]

Globalites perhaps? .

I see no reason to drag cheesy Indian athletic shoes into this........................Have you read CJ's Globalite bit? It's surreal, like being transported back to a high school weekend camping trip where we waxed poetic on the meaning of life. Which is great if you're age 17 and forget what you said by the time you wake up.

So, anyways what was the point on which you said I Told You So???? Was it the need to get the paperwork started early? At any rate, shocking even for the UK Silly Service.

Yeah, there's no shortage of people in the UK who don't really grok the whole "living abroad" concept. "Oh, you live in Japan, you must have a Japanese passport?" ".

Yeah, lots of Canadians go there too. I can't figure out if it is a rather sweet projection of an Open Country mindset, or some weird notion of White Privilege. I also get my Japanese corrected a lot, which gets weird and rather uncomfortable if there are Japanese in the room.

[Wage Slave]

So, anyways what was the point on which you said I Told You So???? Was it the need to get the paperwork started early? At any rate, shocking even for the UK Silly Service.

From the thread starting post, inter alia:

I thought that January would not be a busy time and indeed I can't believe it is busy compared to July/August.

.....

And if it is like this now what's it going to be like in peak season?

[Samurai_Jerk]

I also get my Japanese corrected a lot, which gets weird and rather uncomfortable if there are Japanese in the room.

That reminds me of a story my English friend told me shortly after returning to Blighty. Some people with no exposure to the language were asking him about Japanese and he was explaining how it's difficult to master the honorifics. They countered that it's probably just like tu and vu in French so it couldn't be that tough. Then they asked him how to say "Happy Birthday," so he said tanjoubi omedetou. They accused him of making it up and not actually speaking the language since that didn't even sound like Japanese. I'm sure they were expecting him to say something exotic like "Ching chong chang." It must have been a real disappointment to them.

[legion]

if you read the comments on the Grauniad there are some pretty bad cases, people who find themselves without ID in countries which don't have ID cards for foreign residents, one guy saying they got fined and nearly deported.

I am so glad I didn't send my daughter's Japanese passport in with her UK one, though they say you should send in any other passports you have, if I had I would be facing the prospect of cancelling our flights to the UK in July, which would be a great disappointment for all, my parents are in their mid 80s and are really looking forward to seeing us.

It's pretty obvious it is us tax avoiding expat immigrants that are being put on the back burner while they process the resident voters

[Coligny]

I see no reason to drag cheesy Indian athletic shoes into this........................Have you read CJ's Globalite bit? It's surreal, like being transported back to a high school weekend camping trip where we waxed poetic on the meaning of life. Which is great if you're age 17 and forget what you said by the time you wake up.

So, anyways what was the point on which you said I Told You So???? Was it the need to get the paperwork started early? At any rate, shocking even for the UK Silly Service.

Let me guess...

Shitfaced drunk again ?