Passport niceties
I have a new passport; it’s nice and shiny, but I think some of the old florid language has been toned down. Which is a shame.
My new passport arrived today. It expires in 2013, which is scarily far in the future, and the hologram over my photo has been placed in such a way that, from certain angles, it looks like I have the mark of the Beast on my forehead (from other angles I merely look like Jesus - oh, the irony). In a nice touch, the embossed logo on every page is a rose, a thistle, a leek and a shamrock, which suggests to Cleodhna that the United Kingdom is inherently vulnerable to attacks by nations whose national symbol is a goat.
(The word “goat” somehow always needs to be in italics. Badger is like that as well; I always feel that you should put on a Jeremy Clarkson type voice when you say the word badger.)
It also arrived with an impressive number of stickers to peel off for security reasons, which gave me a warm fuzzy feeling when I’d finally removed them all and filled in the contact details for people to inform in case of emergency: dammit, now my Passport was well and truly ready.
One dissapointment, though: I think the wonderfully florid language at the beginning of the passport has been toned down, unless it’s just that the type is now smaller so the declaration doesn’t fill the entire page any more. And I could have sworn that the previous passport mentioned me being a subject of the Crown (this was something that always annoyed my father). The full wording is still pretty impressive:
Her Britannic Majesty’s
Secretary of State
Requests and requires in the
Name of Her Majesty
all those whom it may concern to allow
the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance,
and to afford the bearer such assistance
and protection as may be necessary.
(Edit:) That is indeed the same as the old wording; my old passport arrived in the post today, with the corners snipped off, so I was able to check the two, and the only difference is layout.
Incidentally, given that this request is in the name of Her Majesty, the Queen doesn’t need a passport (but other Royals do). This raises the interesting question of what happens if the Queen abdicates when she’s abroad; does the new King William have to grant her a passport so she can get back into the country? For that matter, what happens to other people who are preparing to travel? They’re lumbered with a passport in the name of Her Majesty, and there no longer is a Her Majesty, there’s now a His Majesty. Bugger.
It’s for this reason, I believe, that often Her Majesty is abbreviated HM (i.e. HM Government), so we don’t have to go around changing the stationary when the monarch dies. Unlike the Japanese, who had to change their calendar.