JANEY MAC and also WELL HOLY GOD

[ailbhe]

I took out the passport application forms and the old passports and the long form birth certificates and had a quick shufti at the passport website and then sat down to read the forms.

They've changed the bloody blasted damn walloping regulations again.

Cue me phoning around everyone from a qualified profession in Reading. The bank manager refused to do it because of the regulations for a British passport application, which ARE NOT RELEVANT. The doctors refused to do it because they don't witness signatures, they just sign forms. The dentist wasn't answering the phone. Then I turned to people we know socially and realised that one of our closest neighbour-friends qualifies and called him and asked him and YES YES YES HE CAN DO IT.

That's a currently employed practising accountant who can be phoned at his place of work on a landline number almost any time during office hours. We already know that if you happen not to answer the phone they send the damn forms back.

So now I just need to get the photos taken. The passport office helpfully sent us a little plastic pouch into which to place the photos to check they qualify, and a sheet of instructions with sixteen sample photos showing the most common errors.

Luckily there's a Snappy Snaps handy where I can get photos taken and reject the ones which don't qualify without having paid for them. So that's a nice project for the near future.

Anyone who knows how to get Emer photographed with her knowledge and without having her smile, please let me know.

Comments

[geekette8.livejournal.com]

To get Matthew's passport picture when he was 6 months old, we propped him up against the fridge (white background) and took about 8 million pictures of him until we got one where he was facing straight on to the camera and not smiling. It was a pain.

Snappy Snaps (etc) must SURELY have some way of dealing with this? They might even be able to take it as video and grab a frame of it that meets the requirements. If the requirements are not the same as British ones, though, they might be slightly clueless.

[tiggsybabes.livejournal.com]

Good luck, it took me about 3 days to get Holly's passport taken at the photo shop in town. She just kept refusing & we managed on the last day that gave us enough time to get them processed & back before our holiday. So much stress ...

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

Maybe if you and Linnea get right into the "pretending to be angry/sad/frozen/whatever" game, practising at home and talking about it when it's your turns at the store, and then Linnea gets Emer to play?

[schmoomom.livejournal.com]

You know about ePassportPhoto (http://epassportphoto.com/)? The only way we do our pics now. It's BRILLIANT. No cost, and the pics the way we want.

[mecmom.livejournal.com]

No smiling? really? I didn't know that was a regulation. I wonder if it is for US as well. I have a new passport photo, but I don't remember if they told me not to smile. I'll have to look at it again.

[ai731.livejournal.com]

No smiling on Canadian passport photos, so I expect the same in the USA. They (where I got my photo taken) also wanted me to take off my (tiny, silver, invisible on the resultant photo) hoop earrings, but I read the form and knew that there was no prohibition on jewelry so long as your face is clearly visible, so I refused.

[ckd]

The Irish passport regs are also pretty annoying for US residents. American notaries public are not considered acceptable witnesses[1], and they won't take credit cards for the fee; you have to get a money order or cashier's check. (No, I don't know why they're stricter here than the forms indicate.)

OTOH, at least Boston has an Irish consulate I can get to easily (a short subway ride) and walk in with all my forms and such, rather than having to mail it all in.

[1] I almost wound up having to go to the police station to find someone suitable, but I was able to get my regular doctor to do it while I was there for an appointment. If they'd accept notaries, I could have done it at work in five minutes....

[ailbhe]

The police won't do it for me here, and nor will the doctor or the bank manager. Last time, the neighbour hadn't known us long enough to qualify.

Here, the witness to a parent's signature on an application for a minor's passport MUST be contactable by telephone at their place of work during normal office hours, and a mobile phone isn't acceptable. So our teacher and lawyer acquaintances aren't good enough either, and nor are the doctors we know socially.

We get the standard form and then a list of the special regulations applying to residents of Great Britain, when we send away for the forms. And the only option for a minor's passport is to apply by post.

[ailbhe]

First, find a white background... It's much easier for me to get it done by a professional photographer!

[ailbhe]

Yeah, they have done it before, for babies - it was incredibly easy.

[ailbhe]

No smiling, no hair on your face, no raised eyebrows or frowning, no military or police uniforms (damn!), no red-eye, no high collars, no shadows, no eyeglasses unless the frames do not obscure the eyes or the eyebrows...

[schmoomom.livejournal.com]

We laid Eoin down on a white sheet cause he was so young when we first did his passport, and they don't allow parents to be seen holding the kids.

White curtains? Anywhere like that? Or a white floor?

[thealmondtree.livejournal.com]

I've had similar hassles with witnesses for passports. The first time I needed to renew my passport after I moved to live in London, the only person in the whole of the UK who had known me long enough to qualify to sign the form was in Manchester.

For a short while today I thought I was going to have to go through the whole guffufle of new Australian passports for myself and Theo until I remembered that I hadn't put them away properly when I got back on Sunday so they didn't get stolen (just my birth and marriage certificates and the letter from the Home Office saying I'm allowed to live here!).

Good luck with getting Emer to produce the right face.

[clanwilliam.livejournal.com]

That's going to be interesting for me in a few years' time - last time I walked into the local copshop and asked the desk sergeant if he wouldn't mind signing, after explaining that all he had to do was attest that the photos were of me. He was rather gobsmacked but very co-operative.

[ailbhe]

I think it's very different for one's own passport. Bringing minors into it complicates things; Rob and I need the witness to attest that we are who we say we are and so are the children and then we must sign the forms in the witness's presence and they have to do the photo-signing thing and the form-signing thing.

[ckd]

Sounds like the minor's passport is twice the hassle! (My sister-in-law will love hearing that, since my nephew doesn't have an Irish passport yet. Might be easier to just get him a British one, though who knows how tough they will be for US resident minors....)

[ailbhe]

Well, they're very easy for UK resident minors - you don't even need both parents to sign it! I was thrilled to find that one parent was entitled to obtain a minor's passport without the other parent's knowledge or consent. Thrilled to bits.