O photo booth, where art thou?

I decided that it would be a fine idea to use my as yet unspent winnings (well, mainly unspent) from the quiz just over a week ago on renewing my passport. I let in lapse in 2006 as I didn’t see myself needing one ion the near future and I still don’t really, but the option of a sneak attack on the continent would be nice.

I filled out the form online and the passport office kindly sent me the official version filled out as far as possible some time ago and I filed it as pending. Now I have decided to renew it, I need photographs of my unsmiling physog.

You remember those automated passport photo booths? Of course you do. The ones that were always filled to the brim with screaming school kids trying to get a group photograph from a booth designed for one. The things where they ended up with eight pairs of eyes falling off the bottom of the picture and the tall girl at the back with the top of her head chopped off by the top of the frame. Usually there would be a balloon, too.

There was a time when you could barely walk down the high street without tripping over those machines. There would be one in any vaguely sheltered corner, at least one in every train station, at the taxi rank and in every pharmacy and sometimes in the chip shop, too; next to the one-armed bandit. Well I spent a goodly part of Saturday trudging around the West End trying vainly to find one (though it occurred to me after the event that I had walked past a couple of prime sites without investigating). This morning I found one at Victoria station (the one I used in 1996 to take the picture for that passport and in which I looked like a world weary detective who had lost an important case at the High Court).

It was broken.

I am told there is another one on the station, right down the back, in the dark bit by the Brighton platforms. I might try that on my way home. Or I may just never leave the country again and spend the money on buns instead.

O photo booth, where art thou?

I decided that it would be a fine idea to use my as yet unspent winnings (well, mainly unspent) from the quiz just over a week ago on renewing my passport. I let in lapse in 2006 as I didn’t see myself needing one ion the near future and I still don’t really, but the option of a sneak attack on the continent would be nice.

I filled out the form online and the passport office kindly sent me the official version filled out as far as possible some time ago and I filed it as pending. Now I have decided to renew it, I need photographs of my unsmiling physog.

You remember those automated passport photo booths? Of course you do. The ones that were always filled to the brim with screaming school kids trying to get a group photograph from a booth designed for one. The things where they ended up with eight pairs of eyes falling off the bottom of the picture and the tall girl at the back with the top of her head chopped off by the top of the frame. Usually there would be a balloon, too.

There was a time when you could barely walk down the high street without tripping over those machines. There would be one in any vaguely sheltered corner, at least one in every train station, at the taxi rank and in every pharmacy and sometimes in the chip shop, too; next to the one-armed bandit. Well I spent a goodly part of Saturday trudging around the West End trying vainly to find one (though it occurred to me after the event that I had walked past a couple of prime sites without investigating). This morning I found one at Victoria station (the one I used in 1996 to take the picture for that passport and in which I looked like a world weary detective who had lost an important case at the High Court).

It was broken.

I am told there is another one on the station, right down the back, in the dark bit by the Brighton platforms. I might try that on my way home. Or I may just never leave the country again and spend the money on buns instead.

Phooo

This is terrible; I don’t know what’s happening: I have let three successive cups of coffee go cold. I didn’t realise that I was so engrossed in what I have been doing. It never happens, even when I really am concentrating. I always find the time to drink my coffee, excepted only when I am dragged from my desk for a meeting or similar. That has not happened and yet there it is, room-temperature coffee.

Still, I shall be leaving shortly for games night – allowing additional time to swing into Victoria to try the alternative photo-booth down in the darkness by the Brighton platform…

Four more working days and then holidays! Hurrah!

Phooo

This is terrible; I don’t know what’s happening: I have let three successive cups of coffee go cold. I didn’t realise that I was so engrossed in what I have been doing. It never happens, even when I really am concentrating. I always find the time to drink my coffee, excepted only when I am dragged from my desk for a meeting or similar. That has not happened and yet there it is, room-temperature coffee.

Still, I shall be leaving shortly for games night – allowing additional time to swing into Victoria to try the alternative photo-booth down in the darkness by the Brighton platform…

Four more working days and then holidays! Hurrah!

Photos

Well, I have my passport photos. They are suitably unsmiling and glum, the way passport photos are meant to be. My balding pate is reassuringly pointy, though, so all is not lost.

Only three of the four are usable - there appears to be ectoplasm or virtual bird poo on the other one. Luckily, I only need two. I do only need two, don't I? It's soooo long ago, I barely remember.

Photos

Well, I have my passport photos. They are suitably unsmiling and glum, the way passport photos are meant to be. My balding pate is reassuringly pointy, though, so all is not lost.

Only three of the four are usable - there appears to be ectoplasm or virtual bird poo on the other one. Luckily, I only need two. I do only need two, don't I? It's soooo long ago, I barely remember.