"your hair's too close to your face"

I went to renew my passport today, having got married recently. Well, not that recently as it goes, but I've been a bit slow off the mark. (Incidentally, you can blame my lack of blogging for, er, almost a year on (a) the wedding and (b) the fact that I've had to work REALLY HARD for ages and damn it, haven't had time to blog at work.)

Anyway. So there I am at the post office, queueing for half an hour and paying £7 on top of all the other ridiculous passport fees, just so that I can benefit from the following conversation:

Mrs Counter 9: "Ooh. They're not going to accept these photos."
Me (genuinely astonished; I thought I had followed the instructions sent to me with the passport application forms, and pasted all over the photo booth, to the visual letter): "Really? Why not?"
Mrs Counter 9 (slightly jobsworthly, I'm afraid to say): "Your hair's too close to your face."
Me (reeling slightly and wondering whether to giggle): "Guh?" (I know. Eloquent in my stupefaction).
Mrs Counter 9: "And you're smiling."
Me: "Am I?!"
Mrs Counter 9 (suspiciously): "Did you get the instructions?"
Me: "Yes. I thought I'd..."
Mrs Counter 9: "I'll ask my colleague." (shuffle, shuffle). "Is she smiling?"
Mrs Counter 8: "Ooh. Well. Hmmn. Actually, her mouth is in a straight line. She's just got a smiley sort of face."
Mrs Counter 9 (peering at me and the photos alternately): "Hmmn. Yes, perhaps."
Mrs Counter 8: "I wish I had a smiley sort of face. Me, I'm just grumpy." (demonstrates a comically grumpy face, causing much merriment amongst all counter staff).
Mrs Counter 9: "Ooh yes, me too. Grumpy. Ha ha."
Mrs Counter 8: "When's she travelling?"
Mrs Counter 9: "When you travelling?"
Me: "January."
Mrs Counter 9: "January."
Mrs Counter 8 (pensively): "January..."
Mrs Counter 9: "You'll probably be all right."

How not travelling till January could resolve the fact that I appeared to be smiling (the very thought!) I'm not sure. In all the excitement they seemed to forget all together about the fact that my hair's too close to my face. Therefore, I'm now nervously awaiting an envelope from the passport office which could well contain a voided application form with the memorable judgement that my "hair's too close to [my] face" scrawled on it. If so, I may have to invest in one of those horrible weird sort of comb-band things so that, for my next photos, I can scrape my hair as far as possible from my face. Which, let's face it (no pun intended, haw haw), isn't very far, being as my hair is actually attached to the edge of ... my face.

I'd probably just end up with Mr Counter 2 telling my forehead's too big anyway.

Final thought on the subject: an additional grumble about the lengths I have to go to renew my passport, having been born outside the UK. Apparently, just sending in my current passport (granted by them) is not enough to prove my Britishness. They also need my parent's names, dates of birth, places of birth, date of marriage, passport numbers and date of issue. And my birth certificate. For which I then need to pay an extra £3 for them to return securely.

I might just have been able to get over it, had I not had to spend an additional few minutes explaining it gently to Mrs Counter 9, to whom I was in the process of paying £7 for her expertise.