Odd passport

I thought the border agency here was pretty slack.

I’ve written before about The Man’s issues with the border agency and his very long awaited visa renewal. They’ve had all the paperwork and more than £1200 for more than six months. So how about this newspaper article about the border officials in Turkey.

You’re standing at passport control, exhausted from a flight spent contorted with your knees in your face.

Faced with the cold gaze of an official fixed on you, your thoughts turn to why on earth you didn’t shave to make you look less like a Crimewatch e-fit.

When the ocular interrogation is over you breathe a sigh of relief, only to find out your daughter had been passed through customs with a toy passport, no questions asked.

That’s the scenario Allen Harris found himself in at Antalya, Turkey; his nine- year-old daughter, Emily, delighting in the fact her toy unicorn’s passport had even been stamped.

His flustered wife, Nicky, had given her daughter the wrong ID when the plane landed for their family getaway.

‘I didn’t realise until I was putting the passports away,’ Mrs Harris said. ‘There was a moment of panic when I thought someone would come chasing after us, but nothing.

‘The passport doesn’t even look real – it’s got gold teddy bears on the front and was a completely different size from mine and my husband’s.

‘The man even asked Emily how old she was, and she told him nine, before he stamped it.’

While the Harris’s reflected on their good fortune at the officials turning a blind eye, Lily the unicorn was guarding their home in Cwmbran, South Wales, unaware she now had a Turkish visa.

Mrs Harris added: ‘The picture ID wasn’t even of Emily, it was of a pink unicorn. And to make it worse, the unicorn wasn’t even on holiday with us.

‘We saw the funny side, and laughed at the fact that the officer had even stamped the passport.'