bickster Posted March 6 Moderator Share Posted March 6 6 minutes ago, sheepyvillian said: Is there anything more disconcerting than watching a bunch of grinning "Tories." What a shower. I still find the idea of John Major and Edwina Currie bang at it rather more disconcerting 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Genie Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 The Tories have done an amazing job since 2010 according to this speech, I didn’t realise all this time. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepyvillian Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 I used to think John Major was somewhat puny, but in comparison to Sunak he's like a Marvel comic - book hero. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sheepyvillian Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 Same old Tories, let's all bully the lady. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 51 minutes ago, Genie said: The Tories have done an amazing job since 2010 according to this speech, I didn’t realise all this time. Job as in bank job. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted March 6 VT Supporter Share Posted March 6 Who was the hottie sat next to Sunak whispering sweet nothings in his ear the lucky dog. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BOF Posted March 6 Moderator Share Posted March 6 1 hour ago, bickster said: I still find the idea of John Major and Edwina Currie bang at it rather more disconcerting How about David Mellor in (just) his Chelsea shirt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bickster Posted March 6 Moderator Share Posted March 6 55 minutes ago, BOF said: How about David Mellor in (just) his Chelsea shirt. Wasn't true the Chelsea shirt bit but yes the thought of David Mellor breathing even revolts me 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marka Ragnos Posted March 6 VT Supporter Share Posted March 6 (edited) 10 hours ago, TheAuthority said: If you hold a British passport how involved was it? I was born in the UK and would like my boys to have British passports. Haha. It's involved! But our situation is different from yours as I'm British by descent, not birth, and my son's grandfather is UK-born -- so two generations off. The only thing that made it possible is that I lived and worked in the UK for a long time, earlier in life, and everything had to be documented, etc., and it all required referees of good character, etc. and a British person who knew my son for three years. In your case, your children are automatically citizens. Mine wasn't. Getting the passports should be fairly straightforward. If you've a complicated family situation, it can be a little trickier, but not much. Your passport, wife's birth certificates, children's birth certificates, and your marriage certificate -- I think those are all you will need. Easier to do at younger age, by the way, so get on it. I'm sure it will work out easily. Edited March 6 by Marka Ragnos 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marka Ragnos Posted March 6 VT Supporter Share Posted March 6 8 hours ago, villa4europe said: it was the reason I left England and went back to living in Germany long story, i moved my wife and 2 kids to the UK November 2022, did a load of online research before i went, spoke to a couple of lawyers before I went, consensus was go to the uk, apply for a visa, pay a load of money, everything will be fine. Moved to the UK, you cant do the visa application from inside the UK you have to be outside and visa application took 6 months because of the Ukraine war and once you start the application you cant travel anywhere, so my wife and kids would have to go back to Germany for 6 months while I did the application, she wouldn't even be able to visit the uk in that time, and that application would cost circa £4500 and id have to make a contribution to the NHS of about £1500 a year and they could say no and anytime in the next 5 years they could revoke it...and because my wife didn't have a visa she legally wasn't allowed to live in the rented accommodation that I had, and you cant do a visa application without a fixed address...but the advice from the lawyer was get your kids passports because that will make my case stronger... I phoned the passport office, requested a meeting and they said no they don't do that anymore, they said I had to post the kids German passports to them, i said no, partly because of the risk of posting them partly because of the risk of my kids actually leaving the country before the application was complete which is why i wanted the meeting, passport office advice was to photocopy each passport and get it signed by a lawyer and send it in with birth certificates, marriage certificate etc etc and then I had to include a letter stating that i wasn't living at the address that i should be in because my rented house had fallen through and that they needed to be sent somewhere else, the documents in each application were exactly the same. The weird thing with the UK passport office is then I had to send each application to a different office, my daughters passport was approved straight away, got it within 6 weeks i think, really smooth easy process, sent to my moms house where i was living, my son's passport was rejected, they don't accept photocopies they want original documents, several phone calls later they're not interested, refused to issue him a passport my wife left, she'd had enough, went back to Germany, the amount of bad advice from official government offices and the pissing around with the passport meant she didnt want to do a visa application, she doesn't trust them and to be fair she's right from germany they gave me a case officer at the passport office so i had several emails and phone calls with him, only after i could prove that i no longer lived in the UK would the passport office accept photocopies of my son's german passport and issue him with a UK passport....and despite the emails and phones calls regarding where to send it they of course sent it to the wrong address i was there for 3 months and the whole thing was a shambles Heart goes out to you reading all this. I'm so sorry you all had to go through that. What a 'mare. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marka Ragnos Posted March 6 VT Supporter Share Posted March 6 2 hours ago, sidcow said: Who was the hottie sat next to Sunak whispering sweet nothings in his ear the lucky dog. That was his conscience, lying to him again. It only tells him what he wants to hear. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted March 6 VT Supporter Share Posted March 6 8 hours ago, villa4europe said: it was the reason I left England and went back to living in Germany long story, i moved my wife and 2 kids to the UK November 2022, did a load of online research before i went, spoke to a couple of lawyers before I went, consensus was go to the uk, apply for a visa, pay a load of money, everything will be fine. Moved to the UK, you cant do the visa application from inside the UK you have to be outside and visa application took 6 months because of the Ukraine war and once you start the application you cant travel anywhere, so my wife and kids would have to go back to Germany for 6 months while I did the application, she wouldn't even be able to visit the uk in that time, and that application would cost circa £4500 and id have to make a contribution to the NHS of about £1500 a year and they could say no and anytime in the next 5 years they could revoke it...and because my wife didn't have a visa she legally wasn't allowed to live in the rented accommodation that I had, and you cant do a visa application without a fixed address...but the advice from the lawyer was get your kids passports because that will make my case stronger... I phoned the passport office, requested a meeting and they said no they don't do that anymore, they said I had to post the kids German passports to them, i said no, partly because of the risk of posting them partly because of the risk of my kids actually leaving the country before the application was complete which is why i wanted the meeting, passport office advice was to photocopy each passport and get it signed by a lawyer and send it in with birth certificates, marriage certificate etc etc and then I had to include a letter stating that i wasn't living at the address that i should be in because my rented house had fallen through and that they needed to be sent somewhere else, the documents in each application were exactly the same. The weird thing with the UK passport office is then I had to send each application to a different office, my daughters passport was approved straight away, got it within 6 weeks i think, really smooth easy process, sent to my moms house where i was living, my son's passport was rejected, they don't accept photocopies they want original documents, several phone calls later they're not interested, refused to issue him a passport my wife left, she'd had enough, went back to Germany, the amount of bad advice from official government offices and the pissing around with the passport meant she didnt want to do a visa application, she doesn't trust them and to be fair she's right from germany they gave me a case officer at the passport office so i had several emails and phone calls with him, only after i could prove that i no longer lived in the UK would the passport office accept photocopies of my son's german passport and issue him with a UK passport....and despite the emails and phones calls regarding where to send it they of course sent it to the wrong address i was there for 3 months and the whole thing was a shambles What an absolute shit show. I'm so sorry about that! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sidcow Posted March 6 VT Supporter Share Posted March 6 2 minutes ago, Marka Ragnos said: That was his conscience, lying to him again. It only tells him what he wants to hear. Or maybe Laura Trott. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
villa4europe Posted March 6 Share Posted March 6 1 hour ago, TheAuthority said: What an absolute shit show. I'm so sorry about that! My moral of the story would be don't seek advice because it'll more than likley be bollocks just crack on with the online application and the passport office will only be as good as the person they give your application to 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheAuthority Posted March 6 VT Supporter Share Posted March 6 21 minutes ago, villa4europe said: My moral of the story would be don't seek advice because it'll more than likley be bollocks just crack on with the online application and the passport office will only be as good as the person they give your application to A few years ago I renewed my UK passport from the US by mail and it was all fine. I remember reading then about applying for a passport for a child who was born outside of the UK - it seemed pretty straightforward. I will make sure I read the instructions really carefully though! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marka Ragnos Posted March 6 VT Supporter Share Posted March 6 (edited) 33 minutes ago, TheAuthority said: A few years ago I renewed my UK passport from the US by mail and it was all fine. I remember reading then about applying for a passport for a child who was born outside of the UK - it seemed pretty straightforward. I will make sure I read the instructions really carefully though! There are things about UK citizenship and passport regulation that always seem remarkably old-fashioned to me, despite the society's general modernity and godlessness and "socialism" in 2024. The emphasis on marriage, for example, and the notion of illegitimate births, and so on. I've definitely seen the tide of morality (or just tradition? ) ebb and flow over the years, too. It's interesting to me. I had a devil of a time dealing with my dad's complicated marital history when I was applying for a passport 25 years ago. Edited March 6 by Marka Ragnos 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marka Ragnos Posted March 6 VT Supporter Share Posted March 6 (edited) Anyone notice that bad reviews in so-called "legacy" publications don't seem to exist anymore. I miss them. I miss witty, savage criticism. Sometimes there's a bandwagon everyone jumps on to pile on a bad film or tv show, but rarely do we seem to have bitter disagreements, and there aren't too many "outsider" critics, either. It feels like everyone's on the take. An example: Quote 1978 was a year still experiencing the tailwind of punk, which made Kate Bush stand out like an erroneous sausage amid the beans and to critics, this was viewed more like a fly in the ointment than a benevolent gift to the music scene. The young starlet was bashed from pillar to post by every hack in town, with The Guardian saying she had an “odd combo of artiness and artlessness,” and dismissed her as a “middlebrow soft option.” And NME followed up the barrage with the following: “[Kate Bush] all the unpleasant aspects of David Bowie in the Mainman era…. [Bowie manager] Tony DeFries would’ve loved you seven years ago, Kate, and seven years ago maybe I would’ve too. But these days I’m past the stage of admiring people desperate to dazzle and bemuse, and I wish you were past the stage of trying those tricks yourself.” I don't think it's good for consumers. Are pop music and literature and filmmaking really the best they've ever been in history? It sure seems like that, if you read the reviews. So we buy stuff and sign up for stuff, etc etc. and the shit just keeps coming down the pike. Edited March 6 by Marka Ragnos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted March 7 Share Posted March 7 Well, in some late night negotiations, we’ve just agreed that our house can be a location for the local Uni to do some filming for the masters film / screenwriting course end of year piece. They get the house for a couple of days. We get a cake. They’ve verbally promised it’s not a porno. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seat68 Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 5 hours ago, chrisp65 said: Well, in some late night negotiations, we’ve just agreed that our house can be a location for the local Uni to do some filming for the masters film / screenwriting course end of year piece. They get the house for a couple of days. We get a cake. They’ve verbally promised it’s not a porno. It's never porno until a plumber, 2 goats and Gillian McKeith turn up. Get it in writing. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Davkaus Posted March 8 Share Posted March 8 Happy international explaining that yes there is an international men's day day. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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