I received a letter last Friday.

It was from Social Services, informing me that my free travel-pass had expired.

Note the tense – had expired. Past tense. In fact it had expired in January of last year as I discovered when I checked the card. Now if I had known this, I would have renewed it then even though at the time I never used it.

The problem now is that for the first time, I really would like to use the card just to get in and out to one of my fleet of hospitals. No problem, says they, all I have to do is apply for a renewal online. Grand. I’ll do that.

So I waded through several gubmint websites finding obscure links to even more obscure sites until finally I found the page for renewal. Simplicity, says they, just fill out the form and send us a passport photograph.

Bugger!

I could take a photograph of myself, following their rigorous instructions, but bear in mind that my face has a fucking great hole in it where my nose and part of my mouth used to be. Now I could still send in this grizzly grossly distorted and hopefully temporary image, but what happens when I receive a prosthesis at some point whereupon the photograph of the hole will once more become redundant?

Why the fuck can’t they use the existing photo [which I might add is good enough for my driving licence]?

I haven’t changed much.

Apart from a hole…