Well i took the first step today in becoming a proper British citizen. Have been a Londoner for 13 years now and have been too lazy/busy to bother getting one of them pretty red burgundy passports...until now. Not really sure what prompted this sudden pragmatic behaviour - rather unusual for me - but i suspect it had something to do with one too many hideous experiences at Heathrow/Gatwick customs. While everyone else whips through the EU/UK queues, I get jammed amongst hordes of wide-eyed American youths who smack me with their over-loaded 'backpacks' and earnest Canadians with flag emblems sewn onto their fleeces - their big white toes jutting petulantly out of newly-purchased birkenstocks. They are harmless enough but not when you've been crammed in economy with the Great Unwashed for 9 hours.
So off i went to Elephant & Castle shopping mall today (that place alone deserves an entire novel), where up on the top level is a dodgy looking place called 'The Sunrise Academy'. Academy is a bit optomistic. More like a stuffy, depressing waiting room for Hell. It was full of a dozen or so confused looking people waiting to take the 'Life in the UK Test'. I paid my £34 (it had to be in cash and i didn't have it so bolted out the door, ran to Tesco's, grabbed some easter creme eggs and stood in an static queue for 10 minutes before giving up on the cashback idea and racing to a machine outside. Slipping in right before the doors locked, I was mildly amused to note that we test-takers were subjected to a clumsy version of 'musical chairs' in an attempt to keeping cheating at bay. No offence to anyone there, but i reckon i was the one to cheat off of - the rest of them seemed to have difficulty responding to the roll call.
I was finished the 45 minute test in 7 minutes - and that included going back over my answers twice. I have to say, it wasn't the easiest test i've ever taken. I had to memorise a load of boring bollocks last night about this wonderful country. I bet you, like myself, were unaware that the Welsh like to open their back doors and let out the OLD 'New Year' before opening their front doors and letting in the NEW New Year...fascinating stuff. You'll be pleased to know that i passed, but am now cursed with a throbbing brain full of rather boring statistics about civil servants and women in the workforce (yawn).
Maybe i'll be able to incorporate some of the stuff i learned into a number one pop single. Maybe i can sell it on to someone like Charlotte Church. She's a ballsy girl and is fairly good at singing 'odd pop'. Caught a bit of her show tonight simply because i was unable to move from the sofa (that would be too many self-congratulatory Godiva truffles i consumed on account of my passing my Life in the UK Test....well of course i passed it - i'm not a moron). Darling Charlotte can talk a mean streak, though she was sporting some rather huge, ill-fitting trousers tonight....couldn't take my eyes off of them. But who the hell am i to talk? She's fabulously wealthy, has travelled the world, met everyone who is worth meeting on this planet of ours and has pretty much accomplished more so far in her short life than most of us ever would - even if we were cats (follow me here..the nine lives thing...). Still, shame about the trousers. Someone should shoot the stylist. I'm off to bed. Did you know that the Scottish Parliament has 129 members?
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