this one could run and run!…
well, this morning i got a phonecall from the irish embassy in london….
“there’s been a problem with your passport application” says the girl on the other end of the line and then proceeds to explain to me how the laminating machine which they use to make the passports had ‘messed up’ my photographs.
“where they digital photos?” she asks
“yes” replies the big guy
“oh. that’ll probably be why” she continues “could you send in a new set of photos taken in a photobooth?”
she goes on to explain that i willnae have to go through all the palaver of getting them witnessed again. she’ll send me an envelope addressed to her, so i can just send the new snaps directly back to her and she’ll sort it out. the whole shenanigans, she assures me, won’t unduly delay my passport being issued.
at this stage i was kind of ‘not completely surprised’ as i’d printed the photos out on the freebie photographic paper sample that came wi the printer [which as i've mentioned previously is shite] using an ink cartridge from one of those discount places – so i was well prepared to believe that; either the paper had burst into flames at the first waft of heat from the laminator, or the ink had evaporated away with the rise in temperature.
so, while waiting for the envelope she was sending me to come, i was faced with the new problem of where to score some photobooth shots that didnae make me look like the bride of frankenstein’s uglier sister. me and mazza moseyed down to the university precinct where we knew they had a photobooth and i climbed in and attempted to look half human – a process not helped by the fact that my nose was bright red following the walk to the precinct on a chill january evening and the automated voice that counted down the three seconds before it took each photo in an unnecessarily loud voice, which made it almost impossible to keep a straight face.
finally, i got a shot taken which was so repulsive it nearly cracked the glass in the booth, but it was the best i was going to get out of one of those infernal contraptions, which seem deliberately designed to make the ‘sitter’ look as revolting as possible – short focal length lens and full frontal lighting – for that ‘rabbit startled in the headlights look’
when the snaps finally came out of the machine, i was in for an even greater shock – not only was i ugly as sin, but the image itself was feckin’ distorted! my head was stretched so much wider than usual that it was practically square! the image was horribly exposed, so that my forehead looked like a bulbous glowing yellow dome and the stubble round my chin came out so dark at the corners of my mouth, i looked like i had the fecking mumps!
as we trudged off disconsolately homewards, mazza suggested that i should send the digital ones back in again as well as the photobooth shockers, just in case it was the embassy that had fucked up the first time, and not my prints. that seemed like a good compromise position, so i thought i’d do that. i’d also go to PCworld in the morning and buy the heaviest, most curl-tear-and-rip resistant photopaper they had.
the saga continues!
