Of passports and vampires. Richard Ord on blood red and Tory blue

My passport photo was finally accepted by the Passport Office after two very dubious rejections.
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The first photograph was turned down because there was a shadow in the background. Personally, I think a shadow is a good thing on a passport photograph. Weeds out the vampires.

Britain claims a determination to ‘take back control’ by making it as difficult as possible for undesirables to enter the UK, but the immortal undead it appears are okay?

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I’m assuming Jacob Rees-Mogg had something to do with that one. The Tory MP may be keen on tighter immigration, but not at the expense of his kind (ie bloodsucking sun-dodgers). People laughed when the eccentric old Etonian was described as the “honourable member for the 18th Century” but it’s probably nearer the truth than we care to think.

Oddly, my second passport photo was rejected because I had the wrong facial expression. I say odd because I wasn’t smiling. Smiling is banned on passport photos. Another Rees-Mogg intervention, I suspect. Why would he want to ban smiling on passport photos? I hear you ask. One word: FANGS! The smile’s not the problem, it’s revealing those vampire fangs. No smiling, no fangs on show, innit?

After all the unnecessary photo hoo-harr, my passport finally arrived last week. I got a red one. Brexiteers have been taking great delight in the return of the blue passport. Personally, I don’t think it particularly matters what colour your passport is. In fact, I think you should be allowed to customise your passport, just like we used to do with exercise books back at comprehensive school.

In a desperate bid to make school property last longer in the 80s, we were told by teachers to ‘back’ our jotters etc with more hard-wearing paper. Remainers can back their passports with EU stars while Brexiteers can back their passports with Union Jacks and pictures of bulldogs.

Not wanting to cause offence to either side, I think I’d stay old school and back my passport in a cover of ‘Look In’ magazine, maybe the one with the Six Million Dollar Man on the front.

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