Saturday, April 19, 2008

candid camera

It is an immutable law of nature that you will only notice that your passport is about to expire when you've already booked up lots of imminent travel that requires you to use it. And so it was when Hazel and I booked up a couple of trips for April and May, only for me to discover that my passport expires in August (yes, I know August is after May, but there's a requirement for six months future validity to travel to a lot of places).

So, anyway, I've got to get a new one, which of course entails getting passport pictures taken. As standard UK passports are valid for ten years this provides a handy opportunity to see how much you've aged since the last photo was taken, and to be horrified at your transformation from apple-cheeked youth into Keith Richards. Here's my two photos for comparison purposes:


Not really a dramatic transformation, I think, to be fair. My hair's a bit greyer and thinner (though less so than I'd feared), and that's a truly disastrous pair of glasses I'm wearing in the 1998 picture, but apart from that they're not too dissimilar, possibly because I was a bit hungover when both pictures were taken, the 1998 one in a branch of Boots in the middle of Edinburgh, and the 2008 one in another branch of Boots right here in Newport a week or so ago. That picture up in the attic is obviously still doing its job.

You can do a lot of the passport application process online now, though obviously there's some handing over of photographs (and your existing passport if you're renewing) which has to be done the old-fashioned way, i.e. in person or by post. Further information can be found here. Not at all, here to help.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

you look like a criminal. i'm scared.

electrichalibut said...

Yes, the second one (which is the one I assume you're referring to) is a bit serious, but the lengthy list of things you're not allowed to do in the photographs these days includes smiling excessively, so I may have overcompensated a bit.