Finally, the British government has decided to say I'm allowed a visa. All that's left is to wait for the entry clearance stamp/sticker to appear in my passport, and to not be turned back at the border. Which means that I feel free to pass some comments on the process so far, hopefully in a certain amount of anonymity since I'm still in Melbourne as I write this, and my passport is at the visa section of the British consulate in Canberra.
There have been many people who were surprised to find that Australians need visas to live and work in the UK. It's a fair enough question, really, when you think about it. I've been in the system since mid-February getting this far, and still have up to 2 weeks to go, assuming everything goes to plan that is. All to get into the UK legally. When, if you want to be pedantic about it, Australians should really have more right to enter than the EU citizens who are free to come and go as they please. Afterall, Australia and Britain share the same queen. Given that we have the same head of state, until such time as either country wakes up to the fact that the monarch is outdated - something far more likely to happen in Britain than Australia, as soon as the Brits find someone else to fill the gossip magazines as well and the Windsors do - surely we should be able to have equal rights within countries which are also subjects of the Queen? Logic would suggest it. Because as it stands, if I want to go and work for my ultimate head of state, not only do I have to pass the standard security and background checks that British employees would be subject to, but I would also have to arrange a visa, with every likelihood that I would be refused. Hmm, republicans take note.
Otherwise, the process is no doubt much smoother when there are not thousands on panicked people thinking that new rules will make it harder for them to get their visas dumping applications in at once. I'm fairly certain that it would normally take far less than 12 weeks to process the first stage of the application. I do, however, have to question the point of a two stage process - especially when it's really a three stage process, by the time you factor in the lovely part where they treat you like a terrorist/criminal, and take both fingerprints and a mugshot, which is aparently compared to the passport photo you are required to supply with your application (note for visa people: compare the passport photo on the application with the photo IN THE PASSPORT!!! Given that it's acceptable to prove who you are when they fingerprint you...). Why can they not do both stages at once? Or at least take the applications for both at the same time? Admittedly, this was kind of an option for me, but for the fact that it would have left me in the UK, unable to work legally, for 16 weeks or more while they pulled their finger out. Instead, I've had to fly home, change my flight back to the UK at great expense, and live off my parents for 2 months. As fun as it might be, there are limits. My personal limit for sharing a bathroom with my brother now is, apparently, about the 1 month mark before I start to crack about the puddles on the floor, the fact that towels are constantly sopping wet, and tripping over the shoes left in the middle of the room - not to mention that he uses the entire bench space. I am looking forward to getting back to London and starting the search for a new flat. Not that I don't have a room to go back to...In spite of only being in London for around 2 months in total so far this year, I have been paying the exorbitant rents for the entire period I've been undergoing this torture.
Oh well. At least the end is almost in sight. Hopefully. Assuming they got my application. Because, in true bureaucratic style, I have no means to check that it was received. I may have sent it registered post, but the only way I'll know that it wasn't received is if I don't get it back within the predicted 15 working days. By which time I will be almost ready to leave again. Given the way my luck was running for a while there, I'm not making any plans for the immediate future, just yet.
Halloween Reading
12 years ago
