COUNTERSIGN

Applying for a new passport is - perhaps and probably quite rightly - not as simple as once it was, not least because I have an oft-reported aversion to paperwork, and because the forms have been sitting there gathering dust and demanding our attention since much, much earlier in the year.

Still, with reports of huge backlogs, and the final realisation that the expiry dates were imminent, the pens were lifted and the paperwork completed and - as I have reported elsewhere - the photographs (shudder!) were photographed.

With all this achieved we merrily traipsed over to the local Post Office to have them checked over before they could be sent off into the great unknown to (hopefully) be returned at some future date during the next decade before they might actually be needed.

Unfortunately, the woman dealing with the Post Office "check and send" system suggested that my application might be rejected because I don't wear glasses in my new photo, but I did in the old, even though that was a decision I made only due to their own rule change. This would mean that, unlike ten years ago, it might be wiser if I had the paperwork countersigned to declare that the potato-like lump in the photograph bore more than at least a passing resemblance to my own less-than-fine features.

Going through the list of suggested suitable signatories, it rapidly became clear that my lifestyle, despite being nothing likely to trouble the forces of law and order, rarely brought me into contact with any of the sorts of people who might be regarded as "pillars of the community" - especially any who have known me for more than two years.

I asked for help via FizzBok.

"Would any of you good people" (the "good" was sort of implied), I asked, "describe yourself as "a person of good standing in your community"...? The Post Office have decreed that because my passport application is now "glasses off" I need a countersignature and I'm struggling to think of anyone who I'm likely to run into…"

"The list of "approved people" is very specific... and I don't move in those sorts of circles…"

It was suggested that I might know a teacher, or that my publican could do it, both of which would be fine suggestions for anyone with a typical lifestyle, but my own version - the one in which I found the world far too scary to engage with more than I absolutely had to - did not usually include such people.

You see, unbelievable as it may sound, a pub landlord wouldn't know me, because I haven't been to my local in years, and, to be frank, I don't really see any teachers that regularly either, because child-lite, hermit-y existences really don't make you the most interactive of fellows, you see...

It's odd to realise that 99.9% of the time I spend "in company" is either spent with the Beloved and her mum and dad, or with two m'colleagues in the grey box next to the sewage works... and, according to the "professional persons" list, the world of graphics is a wretched hive of scum and villainy, and doesn't count as a professional way of going about supporting your lifestyle.

And of course, I don't think I've ever met my actual GP, my dentist retired last year, I don't have any "drinking buddies" who might be "useful" in that regard (or, in fact, any drinking buddies at all…), and most of my dealings with my mother's firm of solicitors was done over the phone or via email with people who don't quite qualify on the "known me two years" front.

I haven't seen my own teachers since I left school (and most of them are probably dead anyway) plus I was never that "memorable" and, such is the life of the childless that I don't interact with teachers "professionally" either. I did used to hang out with more teachers, of course, but it seems churlish to turn up out of the blue after more than a decade and then just be asking for a favour, don't you think?

This is all my own fault, of course, (apart from the parts of the situation which came as a result of certain unfortunate circumstances which developed in my life) and most of the time it doesn't matter, but occasionally it kicks up tiny little issues like this one.

Meanwhile, it's made me think rather a lot about certain other things, too. Like the fact that I really don't have a clue what most of my neighbours actually do (other than grunting the odd rather grudging "hello" to me) so I was reduced to the rather pathetic begging process on FizzBok, and dependent upon people I've seen far too rarely over the past decade to do me a huge favour out of the blue.

And you know how much I dislike asking for help… Well, you might, if you actually knew me which, as we've already ascertained, might turn out to be none of you.

Happily, this online approach did actually pay off, because, despite what I might choose to believe,  I do seem to occasionally actually get forgiven for my many, many faults, and I now have a candidate (for which I am very, very grateful…) who is prepared to look at my picture (presumably with a handy bucket nearby just in case it looks too awful and it makes them retch uncontrollably...) and state, for the record, that yes, it is indeed a picture of the me that I say it is, so that's a relief.

However, I am still bewildered by society's assumption that all of our lives are much the same, and we all might have access to such people… (Although it has been suggested to me that anyone that I've actually known a while and who has an actual job would have probably done…)

And when it comes to matters of interacting with society, it seems that I have much to think about during the next ten years...