Technological failure, twice times over
By Mark Tennent in Reader
Posted in Uncategorized on April 23, 2007 at 11:51 am
Why does technology fail exactly when you need it most? Our laptop refused to wake from sleep. Loads of power in it, caps lock lights up, just no signs of life. We spent a week pressing it’s buttons every now and again in case some magic cured it, then reluctantly accepted that seven years is a good life span and it is time to move on.
Last Friday was spent playing with…err…researching new laptops. A MacBook came home and appears to be twice as powerful as our desktop computers, MP4 compression on the MacBook is twice as quick as on our G5’s and makes smaller files too. Now where does one obtain a copy of Windows to try the dual boot capacity?
Still no go - or comeback
Being UK born and bred over half a century ago, there must be a 50 years of our history stored in computer systems. All those bank accounts, credit cards, mortgages, 20 years of education and professional qualifications, not to mention our regular appearances in the media. One would think it would be easy to get a passport to go on a day trip to France. This is, of course, not to get in or out of France but to return home to the UK. Last year I even passed in-depth Police checks and Special Branch cleared us when we supplied the computer networks for Labour’s Millennium conference. I’m the local Neighbourhood Watch man, dammit.
All this is useless according to the British Passport Office who rejected my application because my referee owns his company rather than simply manages it. The exact same referee who was perfectly acceptable for my partner’s application, dealt with by a different civil servant.
Get lost
This is where technology failed again. All that information tracks my life from birth to the present day. Carry a mobile phone and you can be positioned within a few metres but need a referee for a passport and be told to get lost. One has to know the right people for at least two years: a Merchant Navy officer, school teacher, publican, social worker or bank manager to name just a few. The sea may be at the end of the road but there’s no harbour, formal education ended decades ago, until smoking is banned we don’t frequent pubs and they don’t count the vineyard owners we know. I was a social worker but gave that up in the 1980’s and I’ve never met my bank manager. It looked as though my passport would be refused on the grounds I don’t mix in the right circles.
A new application form will be sent to the Passport Office today, a friend who is a GP’s Practice Manager counter-signed the form. He is the closest I can get to the GP the Passport form requests. In any case, a GP would probably charge £200 for their autograph. Nice work if you can get it on top of last year’s 25% pay rise of an already fat salary, plus no more evenings and weekends work.
Maybe I’d better stop sucking lemons or I’ll never get to Amalfi.
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