Rant.
I think I might be a racist. Read this, both of you, and decide.
My girl needs a passport. This is because she's going to another country, in the EU, and although anyone else in the EU can just wander across the borders by bus, car, train or bicycle, we Eurobritons can't. The EU sucks donkey balls; we are not European (I'm certainly not, anyway), but since we pay squillions of pounds to build big shiny motorways in Spain while our piss-poor donkey tracks remain full of potholes big enough to knock our wheels off, we must be European. Either that or it's a scam, but that's another blog.
My girl already has a passport. She is young, so the picture on her current issue is of a toddler. She now has new photographs, taken by a photographer, because she is a girl, and girls like a nice picture on their passports. So I spoiled her. It was only a few quid.
The Post Office (I think they're still called that) has a service known as "check and send", whereby they will make a cursory inspection of your passport application, then send it off, so you can rest easily in the sure and certain knowledge that the passport gestapo will be issuing your lovely new passport in time for your holiday in the sun.
We have a Post Office. It is a Post Office with shop, which sells newspapers, magazines and plastic shite. More on this later. But, being a Post Office, it offers the "check and send" passport service.
"Hello, nice lady behind the counter, I would like to make use of your passport cursory inspection service, please."
Nice lady behind the counter takes paperwork, looks at it, ticks some boxes. Then the photographs are out.
"Hm," nice lady hums, "I'm not sure about the photographs."
"Bollocks," I mutter.
"I'll have to ask Raj," nice lady continues.
"Bollocks," I mutter again.
Out comes Raj. Raj is the stereotypical O my goodness yes Indian gentleman. I have no problem with O my goodness sterotypical Indian gentlemen, unless they prove to me that I should. Raj proceeds to offer such proof.
"The photograph, my goodness yes, it has the hair on the face, in the eye," he starts, "and it is too far away."
"Bollocks," I mutter, loudly this time. And this time it is not a comment, it is a statement.
"Begging your pardons," interjects Raj, unhelpfully, "I am not being able to authorise the photograph."
At this point I realise that I have a huge problem. Or, at least, one of us does.
You see, my family has been English since 1066. I know this for a fact. Before that we might well have been French but now we are to all intents and purposes English. And I speak English, and I can read English quite well. And, despite the last shithole of a government wishing us all to stay locked in our houses and working for the State so we can buy another motorway in Greece, we are actually entitled to travel to other countries and then be allowed back in to good old Blighty again. And, to that end, I took the trouble to research the draconian rules that the passport politzei now implement with respect to photographs.
The photographs I had taken of small girl are quite good, and they are a true likeness of her. Difficult to stop her grinning, as she always grins. And her hair is quite long, and falls all over the place. But it isn't covering her eyes, for that would invalidate the application. And her head, from chin to crown, measures 30mm on the photograph. I know this, because I measured it with a ruler. So the application is valid. I know, because I can read.
So, dear Raj, fuck off. Fuck RIGHT off. It is not up to you to "authorise" anything. It is up to you to do your fucking job, as a Post Office licensee, or whatever someone in charge of a Post Office is. If you want to bring back plastic shite from your cousin in fucking Mumbai or whatever you call the godforsaken call centre these days, then carry on. I don't have to buy it. But you're supposed to be running a Post Office. You're too short and too offensive to be a policeman, and too thick to do much else, so feel free to run a Post Office.
But, Raj, please do NOT, ever, presume to try to tell ME that I am incapable of understanding my own fucking language. Per-lease.
Am I a racist? If I am a racist because of this, then there is something wholly wrong with someone's definition of racism. And I can live with that.
But truly, I would like to know.
Update:
Just been onto the "printable" gov site to get the lowdown on photos.
"Head coverings for religious or medical grounds are acceptable".
FFS.
Update 2:
Just been to the proper Post Office. There is nobody there who sounds like Raj or looks like Raj. There is an English-speaking girl who glanced at all my stuff (paperwork, you know) and stamped it, took the money, sent it off. No problemo, as they say in Greece.
Next step is to get the passport, then I will go to Raj with same, plus a tape recorder and a camera. After that I will be seeking whoever is responsible for Post Offices and those that run them.
11 comments:
Well did you post the application to the passport office directly? Did they accept the photo? If so then you are in the right and can rant as much as you like. Otherwise Raj was right.
Raj was not right. Nor does he HAVE the right to say what he said. Right?
No, you're not racist, just irritated by officialdom.
Our Post Office people said our pictures were wrong, gave trivial reasons, but we sent them anyway. The pics are in our passports.
Mrs Rigby can I ask why you are not focusing on their origins though? Surely if they also came from a different country this would validate Uncle Ms need to highlight Raj the non speaking resident. I wonder how long he has had that dysfunctional post office for?
I like you M but you strike me as one of those Majorca border line racists..... You highlight just how much you and your family have every right to call yourselves English 1066 you say? And we needed this information why? Oh that's right so Raj knows this is your country and he has no right in his broken language to tell you that you are wrong...
Tell me...... In the years that Raj has been serving you what else has he done wrong to warrant such a bitter attack on his language ability?
Then tell me how many illiterate English people that serve you day in day out that get the rules wrong....will you write a damning blog about the Brits with your findings? Because you know you will find multiples.
Oleuanna, if you read through my blogs you'll find they're littered with not only racism against the Indians, but also the Welsh, Scottish, some farm animals, Labour politicians and consist almost without exception of complete bollocks.
Majorca?
Well then my darling I stand corrected you are a racist and it goes without saying you talk complete bollocks... :0>
Marjorca = ..... Border line racists that holiday 5 mins from home and never bother to learn even the basic language of the country they visit, can keep most of their bigotry under wraps whilst sober but 4 pints in and the word nigger is released....but it's ok because 'they work with them and they don't mind it'!! But what really winds them up are the Scarf wearing mussies.... Well you get the drift
"Border line racists that holiday 5 mins from home and never bother to learn even the basic language of the country they visit"
That'll most of East London covered then, give or take 7 hours ;-) Oh, sorry. I forgot, they're "socially excluded" (because they can't be fucking arsed - just like spazzy Essex cunts [and Welfare Jocks in England] in the Costa Del Fucking Sewage, or whatever the fuck the fucking fuckhole is fucking called these fucking days).
Olueanna:
"Those scarf wearing Mussies"?
Is that why you've got a picture of the fuckers as your aviator on "Twitter"? Fundamental Friends of yours, or just a poor joke?
This is the right wing blogosphere you know. Where we're all sexist, racist, pig ignorant, conspiracy theorists, and above all else, and rightly or wrongly, set in our ways.
If you wish to bring the delights of Karl Marx and his teachings to avid and carnivorous minds, (as I see that your a fan of his by your blog), then I'm afraid that your frequenting the wrong end of the fucking political blogosphere market, for that bullshit to take hold.
Dearest Oleuanna (is that your actual name?)
Ah, Majorca. I try to learn the language of a country. I struggle with Turkish but manage French, German and Spanish quite well; well enough to get beer, anyway.
I would never call anyone a nigger. My mate Albert doesn't even like that word, and he IS one.
And I don't have a problem with scarf-wearers, although I do think it's bloody cheeky that they can wear one for a passport photo and I can't. Now THAT's racist, and it isn't ME.
Mrs Rigby can I ask why you are not focusing on their origins though?
My comment related to the rules and how they are interpreted. Nothing was written about the 'origins' of the people who interpret them in either Marvo's Post Office or in our own - and as you don't know where we live I think you, maybe, do protest too much.
Why should I focus on an individual's 'origins' when I don't care what anybody looks like, as long as they do their job properly?
It's just a post office thing. They only seem to hire cretins.
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