| This, apparently, is an actual letter received by the UK Passport Office. 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 license. 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 apologize, 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 A***holes working there? Look at my damn picture. Do I look like Bin Laden? I don't want to dig up Yasser Arafat, for Christ sakes. I just want to go and park my ass on some sandy beach somewhere. And would someone please tell me, why would you give a crap whether I plan on visiting a farm in the next 15 days? If I ever got the urge to do something weird to a chicken or a goat, believe you me, you'd be the last f******* 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 f****** copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of 30 pounds. 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 frickin' place like chickens with our heads cut off, then WE have to find some one to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (bureaucratic frickin' 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 FRICKIN' Afghanistan! |