Our shitty ineffective government really hates letting us leave doesn't it? even for a fucking instant. God for-fucking-bid I should be allowed to throw off the yoke of corporate slavery and the scrutiny of my fucking trustworthy government for a weekend while I go to Spain eh? Imagine a utopia where any man can go to his post office, send off a picture and signature, and receive his official travel documents within a reasonable time frame.
So far, three attempts have been made to run the inky gauntlet of neutral coloured forms and fucking illiterate sentences put forth by the bulging prolapse that is the passport office, hanging from the very bottom of the arsehole government, dripping shit upon the rest of us.
The first attempt was acceptable. I expected to fail. After deciphering the ridiculous riddles that comprise the passport renewal form, I filled it out to the best of my ability; keeping in mind that most of the shit they ask is nigh unanswerable or extremely irrelevant. The person who countersigned my passport form managed to fuck up signing the pictures. O.K. I have more pictures. The second time, the helpful worker at the post office kindly pointed out the plethora of mistakes made on the passport form (the one they printed, no less!).
The third time, my dad insisted on filling it out so I didn't make any mistakes. Guess what. Going to get a new form tomorrow.
I begin to see a pattern emerging as I traverse the slippery ropes of officialdom, some threat that I knew lurked in the shadows lifted its ugly bureaucratic head. When no less than three separate, competent individuals are so utterly soul crushed after dealing with this beast, I begin to think that it is not us who is fucking the situation, but the snot-gulpers who designed the shitty form I wouldn't use to clean up afterbirth. These are the same inept cunts who have been the bane of this nation for generations - the ignorant chauffeured twat who designed the roads and the dickhead who decides to take the goalposts on your local field down as soon as the sun rolls out.
The most pedestrian tasks have become monumental accomplishments in light of this leadership - not this leadership or the ones before it, ALL of them. I will be the first to admit the government has done a whole lot of good, but when I need to take several months out of my life to complete a fucking piece of paper, to get another fucking piece of paper, just so I can fuck off out of this shithole for a short while (all so I can enjoy it more when I get back!) I believe there is something truly wrong with the way we are doing things.
When it comes down to it. We all (most) pay our taxes, we all support our government to at least some degree (we are, after all, not being raped and murdered in our beds by foreign invaders or starving to death and eating our children.) So why in the fucking world, when GCHQ know every minuscule detail about me, can they not fucking verify and assemble a passport for a born and bred Bitish male?
Is it too much to ask that they check their cunting records? Do you really need the fucking co-ordinates and time to the millisecond of my father's birth, regardless of the fact that only the mother's details count anyway? Do you really think I have any vague clue of when my previous passport was issued? I was fucking 5! Where was this passport issued to you? I don't know, in the post? you tell me tossers, you sent it to me.
Effectively what I'm trying to say is that they're a shower of cunts, who don't want to work for the fucking money we pay them.
I've never had any problems filling out the forms. They almost always all come with booklets explaining how to fill them out. And yes, considering that the passport is more than just "travel documents" but is actually a validation that you are in fact who you say you are, it's reasonable that you can't just throw a form at them and expect that they'll take you on your word that you are who you say you are. They ask you all these questions not because they don't know, but because they want to cross-check that what you say is what they know. You'd be having a right teary if you were arrested tomorrow because some cunt who stole your identity scams money from someone.
I did this myself at 18 and got it back in 2 weeks. Post Office even do a Check and Send service for the form illiterate.
People who can't fill in forms should be round up and made to fill in a form to apply for euthanasia, which will be rejected at intermittent periods and for variable reasons.
The numpty that did that costs us 15p per minute. In one scenario, it would take all of five seconds to let out a condescending tut, then remove the paper clip and place the form back in the stack. It works out to be almost cost-neutral, since while that labour cost around a penny we got a paper clip in return. In the alternative scenario, someone has to retrieve the form, draft up a letter, put it in an envelope, along with the form, and post it back to you. That's over a pound in labour and another pound in postage.
How much do they spend on the bureaucracy associating passports? What's their annual budget?
I was reading about gun licenses and how little they cost versus the cost of enforcing it. I don't think licenses should be issued for a profit though, given that it's a matter of liberty. Passports especially, given the freedom of movement associated.
>>15238 >What is the deal with the Schengen area thing, do you still need a passport?
Yes. Even domestically, because the little Hitlers at UKBA can stop you boarding the plane/boat if they don't like the look of you, and you'd have no recourse to your carrier if this happens.
>Is there a reason we aren't in it
Long story short: not really.
>>15238 Means we maintain border controls. Within the schengen area you don't need a passport to go from country to country. Shallow idiots maintain 'its good because it means I don't have to remember my passport when I go on holiday' when in reality it's just for people who work cross borders. We maintain a similar agreement with ireland.
>>15225 You could have applied online and printed out a declaration form, in case you weren't aware.
You're missing the point of asking you for so much information. They're not asking because it's information that's useful in itself for them to know. They're asking precisely so they can check their records and establish that your answers tally. A passport isn't just a travel document; it's an identity document from which all others derive their validity. It also signifies British nationality. I don't think there are very many people who would agree that anyone in Britain with a photograph and signature should essentially be able to obtain British nationality.
That you sent off an application where the photos were not properly countersigned really suggests you're at fault here. The paper application form has had its clarity endorsed by the Plain English Campaign and your suggestion that it's written in riddles says more about your own reading comprehension (though for whatever reason the application form I have in front of me does not carry the Crystal Mark).
>>15232 I'd sooner check an application myself and where necessary talk to someone manning the Passport Adviceline. For example, the supporting literature claims only an original birth certificate will be accepted and not a certified copy, but if you don't possess it that's obviously an impossible ask. The Post Office are only going to catch the most basic mistakes. Then again, OP has shown he's not above making them.
>>15243 Hmm. Having written this I now realise that there are certified copies (a photocopy signed by a professional) and there are Certified Copies (produced by the General Register Office). I was advised by the Passport Office that I should explain that I only have a certified copy and sign that declaration. There was no mention of applying to the GRO for a copy. I'm now left wondering what the employee understood me to mean and what their actual policy is. Oh well.
>>15245 A "Certified Copy of an Entry in the Register of Births" is, for all intents and purposes, a birth certificate, and is acceptable in any context where one is asked for. There is a difference between a "long form" and a "short form", which can make a difference as to the acceptability, though it depends on the presence or otherwise of a particular piece of information, not the paper size.