Bleary-eyed and ready for battle, I took the train to London. Getting a new passport would be hard, I knew that much. I have different names on my primary forms of identification, and I’d lost the only other photo ID that I had. It was going to be hell. No-one gets an easy ride in the passport office.
Stone the crows, they just handed one over to me, for the immodest sum of 89 pounds sterlind. OK, they looked looked long and hard at my football hooliganesque photo in my old passport, and then looked puzzled at my current grizzled wannabe pirate visage.
“Why do you want a new passport?”
I was ready for this. I didn’t mention getting rid of expired work visas or trying to hide the fact that I’d been in and out of the US an unhealthy number of times in the last five years. An unhealthier number than a Scrabble thrombosis on a triple word score.
“I’m going to be away a long time. And I had some issues at the border of Indonesia and was refused entry. I don’t think that looks good.”
And that was that. They didn’t ask for any of the supporting documents, letters, pleas, rolled up bunches of fifty pound notes or anything.
For some reason, I feel like I’ve just done my tour with the french Foreign Legion. Like I have a new passport and a fresh start.
As they say in Austin, Whheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee