Lodging visa applications at embassies in London is Gill’s job and it’s one she thoroughly enjoys. Nearly all of the embassies she has visited belong to countries she would love to visit and therefore, for her, she experiences a snatch of what it would be like to actually go to the country itself!
It’s true to say that for the British, queuing becomes an anxiety-ridden experience when confronted by a haphazard embassy queue. Everyone eyes each other trying to work out the order of the queue, who is next in line and who is before me? If a first-timer should try to unknowingly jump the queue there are cries from the seated queuers of ‘take a ticket’, ‘it’s not your turn’ and the poor individual slopes off duly chastened.
There are, of course, lots of old hands making multiple applications on behalf of companies and on one occasion a businessman approached one of these agents. ‘Please could you come outside and answer some questions for me’, the agent was taken aback. ‘No, if you want to ask questions ask at the desk, I can’t answer your questions’. This conversation persisted, getting more heated and with everyone ear-wigging. Eventually the businessman explained that he was applying for a visa for himself on that day but a number of his colleagues would also need visas in the near future and he felt the agent’s company could help. There was an audible sigh of relief amongst all the visa agents assembled and the one being questioned replied ‘oh, it sounded like you were the police’, to which the others piped up one after the other in agreement.
For Gill, all the embassy staff she has encountered have been charming, courteous and very forebearing of us ‘speed merchants’ who need to be elsewhere before they’ve arrived and can’t handle anything but orderly queues. She is always particularly touched when a lady who works at the Libyan embassy smiles each time she sees her now. For Gill walking into an embassy amounts to walking into the country itself. The embassy’s queues and their bureaucracy are a reflection of the country itself and it is a privilege to have this tiny insight into the country, its people and its culture. Gill is travelling vicariously…
