Late night rant ... Diatribe

(Voilà comment j'aime voir ma fille: en train de bien vivre son enfance !)

Vous m'excuserez cette fois-ci si j'en dit plus en anglais qu'en français. C'est que là je suis en train de lire les documents pour renouveler mon passeport, pour prendre un passeport à Rebecca, et aussi peut-être (vu le prix) un acte de naissance britannique pour Rebecca.

Et voilà que des fous de la sécurité de l'autre côté du monde ont décidé que pour aller chez eux il faut un passeport biométrique. Et voilà que le gouvernement britannique a décidé que je dois avoir un passeport biométrique - même (surtout) si ça coûte plus cher. Même si je n'ai pas le moindre intention d'aller de l'autre côté du monde.

Et combien dois-je débourser pour ce privilège ?
Passé 800 balles pour les trois documents.

Oui, ça c'est 800 CHF !

Je verses !

Et on dit que c'est cher de devenir suisse. A voir, c'est cher de rester anglais. Et en plus, Rebecca (de même que Kalia d'ailleurs) n'est qu'à moitié anglaise, puisqu'elle ne pourra pas transmettre sa nationalité anglaise à ses enfants.

Bon, c'était censé être la version courte...

(I love it when Kalia is engrossed and happy).

(Update: Since writing this, I discovered that the 48-page bit is not true - I read the documents wrong. I leave the article as-is 'cos it won't be funny if I start cutting the juicy bits out.)
This evening's broadcast comes from a very unhappy bunny who is reading through british passport application documents. I have to renew mine, get one for Rebecca, and possibly also get her a birth certificate.

I say possibly because (official doc from embassy dixit):
Registration of birth = 212.00 CHF
Certified copy of the entry (birth certificate) = 136.00 CHF
Registered postage = 5.00 CHF

I'm sorry?!

For that price, I'd be expecting a birth certificate written on tibetan yak vellum, hand-embellished by a 12 century monk specially beamed forward in time for the occasion.

And what genius invented splitting off the birth registration from the 'certified copy of the entry' ("haha, that way we can charge them twice the price and they'll never notice"). I'm sure that will really help Rebecca in later life:
"Well you see, I don't have a certificate, but my birth was registered... somewhere."

That's just the birth certificate. Don't get me talking about the passports!

Ok, DO get me talking about the passports.

The goverment of a certain country on the other side of the world have decided that you have to have a biometric passport to visit their country (unless you already live there of course, in which case you have a >1% chance of already being in prison anyway!) (if you're a man- unchecked but convenient statistic).

Yeah, well, fine, so be it.

But now I have to have a biometric passport, even if I've got no intention of going 'over there'. And what's more, I have to buy a 48 page frequent travellers one ("haha, we've got them over a barrel here in Switzerland, might as well make them pay 50-odd francs for 6 extra pieces of paper!")

Can I point out that my current 10-year-old passport has nothing on any of it's 32 pages? And that logically (my late-night logic anyway), if biometric passports are about not needing a visa, then I should need less pages, not more.

And that will cost 279.00 CHF - normal because it is 'new technology' (which has already been hacked - possibly unreliable source :)).

And then there's the passport for Rebecca.

Can anyone explain what possible use a baby passport is? With a photo of a two month-old baby? Which has to last till they're 5 years old? To me, the following paragraph can be paraphrased "no use at all, but we can sting you for more":

"We know that a baby’s appearance changes quickly, but separate passports have been successfully issued to babies and young children for many years without there being any problems about the child’s identity or appearance."

http://www.ips.gov.uk/passport/apply-photos-babies.asp

Eh right...

And that will cost 180.00 CHF.

People complain that getting Swiss nationality is expensive. 'Turns out keeping British nationality isn't cheap either!

Maybe all this is just so that we will end up thanking them when they force us to pay 100 quid for an ID card? ("Oh, it's so cheap, and ... thin!")

I don't know what all you voting people are doing over there, but carry on trying, seems something's not quite right yet. Or so it seems to me, in my rather tired and silly state...