Passport letter
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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 this. 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 1977, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date. For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my pension book, and it is 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, and on the last eight damn passports I've had and on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years, and 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 ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!! I apologise, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You post the application to my house, THEN you ask me for my bloody address!!!! What is going on?? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals workin' 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 arse on some sandy beach somewhere. And would someone please tell me, why would you give a toss 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 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 copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of £30. 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 sodding place like chickens with our heads cut off. Then I have to find some idiot to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (bureaucratic 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
Remarkably almost exactly the same letter was sent to the US State Department too. Although his doctor was born and raised in India. Even more alarmingly an Irate Canadian Citizen sent the same thing to 'Mr Minister', but his doctor was raised in Communist Russia.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
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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 this. 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 1977, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date. For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my pension book, and it is 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, and on the last eight damn passports I've had and on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years, and 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 ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!! I apologise, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You post the application to my house, THEN you ask me for my bloody address!!!! What is going on?? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals workin' 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 arse on some sandy beach somewhere. And would someone please tell me, why would you give a toss 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 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 copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of £30. 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 sodding place like chickens with our heads cut off. Then I have to find some idiot to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (bureaucratic 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
TPFKAPB wrote:
This apparently is an actual letter received by the UK Passport Office.
Apparently!
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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 this. 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 1977, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date. For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my pension book, and it is 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, and on the last eight damn passports I've had and on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years, and 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 ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!! I apologise, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You post the application to my house, THEN you ask me for my bloody address!!!! What is going on?? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals workin' 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 arse on some sandy beach somewhere. And would someone please tell me, why would you give a toss 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 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 copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of £30. 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 sodding place like chickens with our heads cut off. Then I have to find some idiot to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (bureaucratic 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
TPFKAPB wrote:
Well, my family has been in this country since 1776
1066FTFY
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
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Remarkably almost exactly the same letter was sent to the US State Department too. Although his doctor was born and raised in India. Even more alarmingly an Irate Canadian Citizen sent the same thing to 'Mr Minister', but his doctor was raised in Communist Russia.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
Quote:
Well, my family has been in this country since 1776
This tells me that the joke most likely originate from US of A.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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TPFKAPB wrote:
Well, my family has been in this country since 1776
1066FTFY
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
Good point! Whoever has localized this joke for UK has no clue of its history.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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Good point! Whoever has localized this joke for UK has no clue of its history.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
More to the point, they were clueless on American history; and didn't realize the date was significant in the first place. Yeah, to an extent it is shared history; but the concurrent war with France probably occupied a larger fraction of attention at the time.
Did you ever see history portrayed as an old man with a wise brow and pulseless heart, waging all things in the balance of reason? Is not rather the genius of history like an eternal, imploring maiden, full of fire, with a burning heart and flaming soul, humanly warm and humanly beautiful? --Zachris Topelius Training a telescope on one’s own belly button will only reveal lint. You like that? You go right on staring at it. I prefer looking at galaxies. -- Sarah Hoyt
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Quote:
Well, my family has been in this country since 1776
This tells me that the joke most likely originate from US of A.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
There is a quite a discussion on a Snopes forum about it, they mostly conclude the practices described in applying for a passport mean it is most likely Canadian in origin.
Every man can tell how many goats or sheep he possesses, but not how many friends.
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Good point! Whoever has localized this joke for UK has no clue of its history.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
Whilst you might be right it is possible that his family went to the UK in 1776 from a foreign land - just a random coincidence. :-)
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
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Whilst you might be right it is possible that his family went to the UK in 1776 from a foreign land - just a random coincidence. :-)
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
I beg to differ. At the end of the 18th century England is more or less integral country so unless the guy ancestors are high-end aristocracy and family-tree obsessed he has no way to know this. And please don’t tell me they probably was American Loyalist running back home from the revolution, or French prisoners of war, or the German Prussian ambassador at the time and his wife, because we can keep this going forever. :-D
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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I beg to differ. At the end of the 18th century England is more or less integral country so unless the guy ancestors are high-end aristocracy and family-tree obsessed he has no way to know this. And please don’t tell me they probably was American Loyalist running back home from the revolution, or French prisoners of war, or the German Prussian ambassador at the time and his wife, because we can keep this going forever. :-D
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
Deyan Georgiev wrote:
I beg to differ.
And you would be wrong. Parts of my family (according to family history) migrated to the UK from Holland in the 17th/18th Centuries and from Portugal and Spain earlier than that and we can trace the line back to around then. This was not uncommon: many Portuguese and Spanish Jews escaped to Holland and then the UK at this time with more going on to the US. The year is a coincidence but not beyond the realms of possibility: the UK has (usually) been quite welcoming of immigrants no matter where they come from throughout the history of the UK (except when some were invaders but even they have become part of the rich cultural tapestry that is the UK).
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
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Deyan Georgiev wrote:
I beg to differ.
And you would be wrong. Parts of my family (according to family history) migrated to the UK from Holland in the 17th/18th Centuries and from Portugal and Spain earlier than that and we can trace the line back to around then. This was not uncommon: many Portuguese and Spanish Jews escaped to Holland and then the UK at this time with more going on to the US. The year is a coincidence but not beyond the realms of possibility: the UK has (usually) been quite welcoming of immigrants no matter where they come from throughout the history of the UK (except when some were invaders but even they have become part of the rich cultural tapestry that is the UK).
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
I see your point now, but as Bulgarian it wasn’t so obvious for me. Let me try to explain: England was never conquered or wiped out as a country for the last, I don’t know, probably thousand years. My country although considered the oldest in Europe, had 500 years (half millennium!) interruption of the state tradition (country and part of its citizens was wiped out ) from the Ottoman invasion in Europe. All records have been destroyed and a very few was created, so for us to track our ancestry more than 150 years back is virtually impossible. That’s why for me is a little difficult to grasp the concept of someone knowing his lineage hundreds of years back in time, although I respect it.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
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I see your point now, but as Bulgarian it wasn’t so obvious for me. Let me try to explain: England was never conquered or wiped out as a country for the last, I don’t know, probably thousand years. My country although considered the oldest in Europe, had 500 years (half millennium!) interruption of the state tradition (country and part of its citizens was wiped out ) from the Ottoman invasion in Europe. All records have been destroyed and a very few was created, so for us to track our ancestry more than 150 years back is virtually impossible. That’s why for me is a little difficult to grasp the concept of someone knowing his lineage hundreds of years back in time, although I respect it.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
Deyan Georgiev wrote:
England was never conquered or wiped out as a country for the last, I don’t know, probably thousand years
Just under - 1066 was the last time (The Normans invaded under William the Bastard), and some families can still trace their lineage back to people who came with him, or a little further (but not much, because the Normans who stayed behind weren't much for records. However, much of this should be taken with a large dose of scepticism - a rising family (or even individual) could miraculously find distinguished ancestors (without any actual need for shared DNA :-D )
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
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I see your point now, but as Bulgarian it wasn’t so obvious for me. Let me try to explain: England was never conquered or wiped out as a country for the last, I don’t know, probably thousand years. My country although considered the oldest in Europe, had 500 years (half millennium!) interruption of the state tradition (country and part of its citizens was wiped out ) from the Ottoman invasion in Europe. All records have been destroyed and a very few was created, so for us to track our ancestry more than 150 years back is virtually impossible. That’s why for me is a little difficult to grasp the concept of someone knowing his lineage hundreds of years back in time, although I respect it.
There is only one Vera Farmiga and Salma Hayek is her prophet! Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.
Indeed: the last proper invasion of Great Britain was on the 14th of October in 1066 when the Normans, led by William the Conqueror, landed near Hastings on the south coast and overcame King Harold's army. Since then, many have tried and failed and there are people who can, apparently, trace their lineage back to those times. I guess being an Island has some advantages. :)
"If you think it's expensive to hire a professional to do the job, wait until you hire an amateur." Red Adair. nils illegitimus carborundum me, me, me
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Deyan Georgiev wrote:
England was never conquered or wiped out as a country for the last, I don’t know, probably thousand years
Just under - 1066 was the last time (The Normans invaded under William the Bastard), and some families can still trace their lineage back to people who came with him, or a little further (but not much, because the Normans who stayed behind weren't much for records. However, much of this should be taken with a large dose of scepticism - a rising family (or even individual) could miraculously find distinguished ancestors (without any actual need for shared DNA :-D )
Ideological Purity is no substitute for being able to stick your thumb down a pipe to stop the water
My family can trace its male line back to the early 18th century and Charles Stuart. Mrs Wife's father's side can trace its line to the back end of the 16th century and the Ottoman occupation.
Panic, Chaos, Destruction. My work here is done. Drink. Get drunk. Fall over - P O'H OK, I will win to day or my name isn't Ethel Crudacre! - DD Ethel Crudacre I cannot live by bread alone. Bacon and ketchup are needed as well. - Trollslayer Have a bit more patience with newbies. Of course some of them act dumb - they're often *students*, for heaven's sake - Terry Pratchett
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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 this. 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 1977, and yet, the Government is still asking me where I was born and on what date. For Christ sakes, do you guys do this by hand? My birth date you have on my pension book, and it is 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, and on the last eight damn passports I've had and on all those stupid customs declaration forms I've had to fill out before being allowed off the plane over the last 30 years, and 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 ever changed between now and when I die!!!!!! I apologise, I'm really pissed off this morning. Between you an' me, I've had enough of this bullshit! You post the application to my house, THEN you ask me for my bloody address!!!! What is going on?? Do you have a gang of Neanderthals workin' 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 arse on some sandy beach somewhere. And would someone please tell me, why would you give a toss 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 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 copy of my birth certificate, to the tune of £30. 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 sodding place like chickens with our heads cut off. Then I have to find some idiot to confirm that it's really me on the damn picture - you know, the one where we're not allowed to smile?! (bureaucratic 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
It is funny, but in reality if this guy found out that government departments were swapping data and had access to all of his personal data he would be complaining that this is a 'fascist state' or something similar. Having worked with medical data I am aware of very strict rules, and laws, in place about what you can and cannot combine, even if you have all the data - sounds crazy I know but these 'rules' are there to protect our safety and privacy. Imagine what a disgruntled employee could do if they joined all the data together... I know - I am the party pooper :sigh: however it is good to know that there are laws in place that actually make it quite difficult to get and combine information on people. Also government departments are notorious for 'losing' data and I for one would not like to see of all my history sitting outside a government department, or hospital, in a hard disk waiting to be picked up by the rubbish truck(a hospital some years back actually did this...)
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
