Off at the appointed time to get my Passport renewed at the main London Passport Office, not in Petty France, St James' as it used to be, but Pimlico.

I'd already written the Post in my head:  "After all the fuss I'd made about renewing my passport, and all the dithering, in the end the process was so straightforward and trouble-free...."

Not so.

For a start (a 20 minute start) were were all lined up in a queue for an airport style Security Check.  There must have been a competition to find the most Self Important Human Beings in Britain to man the security barricades.  Then there was anoothe queue, and another - and a final one for the cash desk. 

Planned or not the whole process involved systematic cretinisation of everyone whose application was processed.  Everything seemed designed to make us stupid.

For example, when at last my number was called, I - like everyone before me - walked in a straight line towards the interview booths.

"Can I help you?" sneered a another hyper-pompous uniformed operative.  Going in a straight line was a mistake.  All interviewees had to turn to the right.  A sign to advise us?  Why on earth, when there was a chance to remind us we all are idiot subjects of the Queen.

But I probably wouldn't be bothering you with any of this, if the process had all gone smoothly from then on.

It turned out my photograph wasn't suitable.  Which annoyed me.  Having had trouble and lost money on the photo-booth, I had gone to a professional passport photographer and spent £20.  He'd got the composition correct - but used an inferior printer, not enough dpi.  In layspeak it was - and I could now see what the bureacrat was on about - blotchy and ill-defined.  "Well, I'll see if they'll accept it downstairs" she said, "but if not you'll have to come back with a better one."

Later, I walked hafway across Hammersmith to the photographer's.  Had he a better printer - or could take the photo again? I asked calm and friendly.

He went into Wimp Mode.  "I don't know what's wrong," he whined.  "I have never had problems before." 

 "Can't you do anything about t improving it?"  Apparently not  The guy whined some more.  Clearly, somehow he thought it was my fault.  If the Passport Office really did reject the photos he would refund my money, he said.  But not yet.

So back to the booths again.  And this time, if it refuses to acknowledge I have already fed it a £2 coin a gives me a Holiday Snap instead of a Passport photo, I may beat the machine up, for purely therapeutic reasons