by Henry VIII renews his passport and learns that even a king needs a neutral expression and both ears visible
I once decided, personally, who was permitted to enter my kingdom and on what terms. A photo booth outside the post office in Leytonstone rejected my face twice before it let me leave.
The Booking
My existing passport, issued shortly after my return to this country and processed under circumstances several officials still describe as unusual, was due to expire, and Dev booked me an appointment at the post office to have new photographs taken, warning me in advance that the specifications were, in his words, extremely particular, a phrase I did not take seriously until I was standing in the booth myself.
The Specifications
A printed card beside the booth listed the requirements in full. No smiling. Mouth closed. Both ears visible. Plain grey background. No shadows. No headwear, excepting religious or medical reasons, clearly stated in advance. I have sat for royal portraits painted by men who took considerably fewer liberties with my expression than this list demanded, and at least Holbein let me choose my own doublet.
The First Attempt
The machine rejected my first attempt on the grounds that my expression registered as, according to the small screen, not neutral, an assessment I found genuinely offensive given that I had spent the entire thirty seconds attempting to look considerably less severe than my natural resting face, a face that has appeared on actual currency and never once been told it looked insufficiently calm.
The Second Attempt
The second attempt was rejected for shadowing along my jawline, caused, the assistant explained, by my beard, a feature I am not currently prepared to remove on the request of a passport photo booth, having kept it consistently since returning from the dead specifically because it tests extremely well at gigs. She adjusted the lighting instead, a compromise I accepted with visible reluctance.
The Successful Attempt
The third photograph passed, according to the little screen, though the assistant warned me it could still be rejected later by the actual passport office, a second layer of judgment I found almost admirable in its thoroughness, having personally never once subjected my own royal portraits to a follow up review by a separate, unseen authority empowered to reject them after the fact.
The Application
The form itself asked for my occupation, and I wrote comedian, a word that took me considerably longer to type than it should have, given how long I have now held the job, and considerably less time than it once took me to justify any of my previous occupations to Rome. Dev tells me the passport should arrive within three weeks. I have been informed, firmly, that I am not permitted to describe my nationality as sovereign, regardless of the historical accuracy, and I have accepted this, on the whole, as a fair compromise for a man who currently just wants to be allowed back into France without an actual invasion this time.
The full paperwork trail of everything else I am apparently no longer permitted to call myself lives in my succession plan. Further reading on the wider chaos of modern Britain: British Airways petitioning Burnham directly over the price of flights, the desperate promoter’s own account of booking me straight off my own grave, the pub that finally made me feel properly at home again.
