Picture this discouraging scene of a modern dystopia if you will:
I'm out on the town with a cohort of equally genial friends, all looking to make the most of our free time together before the mundane returns to spank our grey matter sore with a paddle. The time is not too late and the streets aren't so bustling as to heighten a rowdy atmosphere. We wander up to the entrance of a bar, ostentatiously lit up and beginning to breathe merrily with life. I hang back, allowing the others to saunter in before me, looking up the street and smiling: it's going to be one hell of a night.
So the last of the lot, save me, slips in through the door and I step up, casual as a concierge, to commence with the revelry. But I'm obstructed by a barrel-chested rhinoceros of a bald man with an Eastern European accent and a request that translates like a command: "ID". No problem, I say, as I flip open a slightly shabby passport to that effect. The gargantuan studies it; he smiles: "this you?" I'm perplexed, of course it's me, why would I deceive someone who looks as if their mother was a Scandinavian Goddess of War? His brow becomes furrowed: "it's out of date".
No, really? Of course it is. But what's that got to do with my identity? Just because a form of official documentation is no longer valid doesn't mean I'm not that person any more; my existence isn't negated by the expiration date, is it? How can it be when the purpose of a passport is to validate international travel? I'm not seeking to cross borders or apply for citizenship, I just want to join my friends for drinks. I say it makes no difference, I'm still him. He sticks to his robotic judgement like patience on a monument: "can't go without valid ID". Go where? I'm still in my country of origin, unlike you (something I wisely neglect to infer to him). He stays sedentary; so do I.
Half-staring into his rocky eyes I notice another lumbering bulk of muscle clop outside, as if to aid this farcical ambush against me. I look back at my original obstacle in amazement as if to say, you're kidding right? Two of you Panzer tanks against me, a mounted pistol? This is insane. Panzer 1 reiterates: "change ID or renew". What do you mean? Are you suggesting I undergo some sort of existential rebirth or that I simply renew the passport? In fact, either option is relatively difficult for me. 1) I cannot, as far as I know, achieve the transcendental feat of physical transformation - if I could, would I allow you to intimidate me as you like to? - and 2) I'm a student! Couldn't your steady wages bolster your perception enough for you to see that I'm not in a position to spend £77 to prove who I know I am to total strangers?
Even £50 for a provisional drivers license is cutting it a bit dear to my purse strings - you also require a VALID passport for that. Calculate that sum to the total of £127 and I'm not smiling. Okay, I'll send off for a copy of my birth certificate to substitute the passport. But wait, I also need to supply an additional proof of ID to support my birth certificate, like my national insurance card. But I was told NI cards aren't proof of age or identity. What's changed? Nothing. I'm still unidentifiable and feeling humiliated for no good reason. The clouds roll in from some miserable coastline and begin to rain on my parade, which never even got airborne. I think Dasdartly and Muttley finally stopped that pigeon.
In the end, I knew exactly where this was going - and no, sadly it wasn't going to escalate into the gritty all-out street brawl I envisioned so impetuously in my head of loathing. I snatch the passport back from him. His eyes momentarily burn like twin phosphorus flares signalling victory, and an easy one at that. I take a step backwards, not forward as my civil rights imply, but backwards. Panzer 2 heaves himself closer to Panzer 1. What do they think I'm going to do - retaliate like Rambo did against Charley? Oh shit, I think, they're going to disassemble and reconfigure biologically like transformers into MotherFuckingPanzerBorg and obliterate my inferior physique with their EgoPulseCannon attack! Tossers....
This, of course, was a far reach from the actuality of the circumstances I have experienced, but is proportionately faithful in terms of the truth. The senseless crushing of spirited, youthful joy; the indomitable defence of establishment policy against individual freewill and right. This, as I've felt it, is the way it bloody well is.
But what I find more disheartening than the typical blockade of balls of steel that I represented there is the absurdity of the notion that my identity is proven, not by my honest-to-God, hail Mary our virgin mother word, but by the necessity of my ID being up-to-date. I do know one thing that's up-to-date - me - I was born on the date printed on my passport and the picture, albeit almost 5 years-old, is still me, just not physically. I'll admit the angelic likeness is a little dubious, but a date of birth is still a date of birth. And if they're so worried that I might not be who MY passport says I am, why don't they send it off to the local constabulary and have them test it for fingerprints and DNA - hell, run it by the national database while they're at it. It's abysmal.
What worries me is that, in a few decades, the situation could be better, but it seems more likely that it will get worse. I mean, if I'm having this much difficulty proving my identity now and I'm finding obtaining 'new proof' an expensive task, what situation of brain-constipating offences to the psyche will manifest after years more technological and social overhaul? If techno-pricing trends are anything to go by, then fingerprint ID will be a mammoth cost nationally and globally. I'm not saying everyone floats in the same boat, but how about some reasoning for the little guy? Where's my arsenal of American weaponry to blow back the relentless Panzers? Perhaps I'll just call in an air strike.......I do love the smell of napalm in the morning.
I'm out on the town with a cohort of equally genial friends, all looking to make the most of our free time together before the mundane returns to spank our grey matter sore with a paddle. The time is not too late and the streets aren't so bustling as to heighten a rowdy atmosphere. We wander up to the entrance of a bar, ostentatiously lit up and beginning to breathe merrily with life. I hang back, allowing the others to saunter in before me, looking up the street and smiling: it's going to be one hell of a night.
So the last of the lot, save me, slips in through the door and I step up, casual as a concierge, to commence with the revelry. But I'm obstructed by a barrel-chested rhinoceros of a bald man with an Eastern European accent and a request that translates like a command: "ID". No problem, I say, as I flip open a slightly shabby passport to that effect. The gargantuan studies it; he smiles: "this you?" I'm perplexed, of course it's me, why would I deceive someone who looks as if their mother was a Scandinavian Goddess of War? His brow becomes furrowed: "it's out of date".
No, really? Of course it is. But what's that got to do with my identity? Just because a form of official documentation is no longer valid doesn't mean I'm not that person any more; my existence isn't negated by the expiration date, is it? How can it be when the purpose of a passport is to validate international travel? I'm not seeking to cross borders or apply for citizenship, I just want to join my friends for drinks. I say it makes no difference, I'm still him. He sticks to his robotic judgement like patience on a monument: "can't go without valid ID". Go where? I'm still in my country of origin, unlike you (something I wisely neglect to infer to him). He stays sedentary; so do I.
Half-staring into his rocky eyes I notice another lumbering bulk of muscle clop outside, as if to aid this farcical ambush against me. I look back at my original obstacle in amazement as if to say, you're kidding right? Two of you Panzer tanks against me, a mounted pistol? This is insane. Panzer 1 reiterates: "change ID or renew". What do you mean? Are you suggesting I undergo some sort of existential rebirth or that I simply renew the passport? In fact, either option is relatively difficult for me. 1) I cannot, as far as I know, achieve the transcendental feat of physical transformation - if I could, would I allow you to intimidate me as you like to? - and 2) I'm a student! Couldn't your steady wages bolster your perception enough for you to see that I'm not in a position to spend £77 to prove who I know I am to total strangers?
Even £50 for a provisional drivers license is cutting it a bit dear to my purse strings - you also require a VALID passport for that. Calculate that sum to the total of £127 and I'm not smiling. Okay, I'll send off for a copy of my birth certificate to substitute the passport. But wait, I also need to supply an additional proof of ID to support my birth certificate, like my national insurance card. But I was told NI cards aren't proof of age or identity. What's changed? Nothing. I'm still unidentifiable and feeling humiliated for no good reason. The clouds roll in from some miserable coastline and begin to rain on my parade, which never even got airborne. I think Dasdartly and Muttley finally stopped that pigeon.
In the end, I knew exactly where this was going - and no, sadly it wasn't going to escalate into the gritty all-out street brawl I envisioned so impetuously in my head of loathing. I snatch the passport back from him. His eyes momentarily burn like twin phosphorus flares signalling victory, and an easy one at that. I take a step backwards, not forward as my civil rights imply, but backwards. Panzer 2 heaves himself closer to Panzer 1. What do they think I'm going to do - retaliate like Rambo did against Charley? Oh shit, I think, they're going to disassemble and reconfigure biologically like transformers into MotherFuckingPanzerBorg and obliterate my inferior physique with their EgoPulseCannon attack! Tossers....
This, of course, was a far reach from the actuality of the circumstances I have experienced, but is proportionately faithful in terms of the truth. The senseless crushing of spirited, youthful joy; the indomitable defence of establishment policy against individual freewill and right. This, as I've felt it, is the way it bloody well is.
But what I find more disheartening than the typical blockade of balls of steel that I represented there is the absurdity of the notion that my identity is proven, not by my honest-to-God, hail Mary our virgin mother word, but by the necessity of my ID being up-to-date. I do know one thing that's up-to-date - me - I was born on the date printed on my passport and the picture, albeit almost 5 years-old, is still me, just not physically. I'll admit the angelic likeness is a little dubious, but a date of birth is still a date of birth. And if they're so worried that I might not be who MY passport says I am, why don't they send it off to the local constabulary and have them test it for fingerprints and DNA - hell, run it by the national database while they're at it. It's abysmal.
What worries me is that, in a few decades, the situation could be better, but it seems more likely that it will get worse. I mean, if I'm having this much difficulty proving my identity now and I'm finding obtaining 'new proof' an expensive task, what situation of brain-constipating offences to the psyche will manifest after years more technological and social overhaul? If techno-pricing trends are anything to go by, then fingerprint ID will be a mammoth cost nationally and globally. I'm not saying everyone floats in the same boat, but how about some reasoning for the little guy? Where's my arsenal of American weaponry to blow back the relentless Panzers? Perhaps I'll just call in an air strike.......I do love the smell of napalm in the morning.
NIIICE. Awesome imagery and description and such a good point. It's happened to me too and it's pretty much ridiculous. It's basically just bouncers being pedantic for the sake of it. Nice post though, brilliantly written.
ReplyDeleteThanks mate, I poured my soul into this one haha It's proving to be a bit of an odyssey between me and, as you correctly put it, pedantic bouncers. Oh well, to paraphrase a gallant Churchill: "we shall fight them on the beaches, on the landing grounds; in the fields and in the streets, and in the hills...we shall never surrender"
ReplyDeletestupid excess of security in these places, i mean the point of security is to keep people safe - you look 18 and you handed over proof, and yet, you ar probably not that person to be honest, you could be 12 really.
ReplyDeletei hate britain.