My battle against Births Deaths and Marriages

29 years ago my mother gave birth to her first child. My dad was tasked with registering the child's name. Being the great Chinese man he is, he misspelled his daughter's Chinese middle name (and people wonder why I'm not more Chinese...)

3 months ago I decided it was time to rectify this mistake. I submitted the Change of Name form along with all the required documents. One week later my entire life plan changed and I decided to move to London. This meant I needed a visa, which meant I needed a passport. My passport was due to expire but because of my impending change of name I wasn't able to renew the passport but had to apply for a new one. I couldn't apply for a new passport until my change of name came through.

The very helpful people at Births Deaths and Marriages told me I had to wait the 8 week average turnaround time before being able to enquire about it. But I could pay a fee for it to be expedited. The expedited average turnaround time was also 8 weeks (seriously BDM someone needs to look at that). So I sat and waited patiently. The day after 8 weeks I called again. No one has even looked at it. But someone must have looked at it because my credit card was charged $174 I told her. Yes she admitted, my form had been opened but only to get the credit card number and then my form was closed again.

I escalated the case. One week later still no one had looked at it. Have I mentioned I love BDM?

I decided to pay them a visit. If I'm standing in front of them they HAVE to do something right? Wrong. "please come back on Monday at 8.30am PROMPTLY. do not be late" she said.

So I was NOT late. In fact I was 10 mins early. I was rewarded for being early by sitting and waiting for 40 minutes. Finally my turn. After the male officer said "never trust a woman" and proceeded to check all the information given to me on Friday by said 'woman' he kindly informed me that my application was processed on Saturday and sorry for wasting your time coming down here. I love BDM.

So I have 6 weeks on the clock to get my new passport and a 2-year UK visa. Wish me luck.