UFO Info Week-End

My sister-in-law is naturally becoming increasingly frustrated by these delays and wondering whether it is worth trying to

My sister-in-law is naturally becoming increasingly frustrated by these delays and wondering whether it is worth trying to come here.Perhaps the objective of UK visa policy is to discourage applicants by these means. In Jakarta it is no longer possible to apply direct to the Embassy, and she has submitted her application, as now required, through a travel agency.Additional documentation insisted on by the Embassy has included copies of the passports of myself and my wife, copies of our marriage certificate and my wife’s Indonesian birth certificate, and a letter from my sister-in-law’s husband saying he has no objection to her travelling to stay with us; all this requested on a piecemeal basis, in that on each visit to the travel agency, a further hurdle is raised. My wife’s twin sister, who has just retired, wishes to spend a short holiday with us in the UK, and we have provided her with an invitation letter as stipulated on the UK visa website, to enable her to apply for a visa from the British Embassy in Jakarta. An Indonesian’s struggle to obtain a visa to enter ‘fortress Britain’

Sir: Following Dr Anne Haour’s letter (5 September), I should like to add a further example of the problems encountered by nationals of Third World countries in obtaining visas to enter the UK.
I am a white native Briton and my wife is a naturalised British citizen, born in Indonesia. There was a gasp of true horror…Perhaps we should draw the veil there.

But if you have a name which amuses people, why not get in touch with NA? There is also a women’s branch, for anyone called Sharon, Nancy, etc
More from Miles Kington. He was replaced by three men standing up together.”I’m Tom,” said the first.”I’m Dick.”"I’m Harry.”Their timing was spot on. There was general laughter.”Do you work as a team?” said the chairman.”Quite often,” said Tom.”In pubs mostly,” said Dick.”It gets us a lot of free rounds,” said Harry.But the temporary air of jollity was dispelled when another new member stood up.”My name is Head,” he said.People frowned.”My full name is Richard Head.”Still they frowned.”But people call me Dick.”Enlightenment dawned. Well, when I say ‘cheerfully’ …”"As a matter of interest,” said the man called Charlie, “does the memory of Larry the Lamb cause you any problems?”"With older people,” said Larry, “you get the occasional bleating noise when they learn my name, but it’s no big deal.”After Larry, there was a Herbert, and a Norman, and a Trev, but the most unusual one was a chap called Jack Robinson.”Why did they do it?” he said “My parents, I mean They must have known Before you can say ‘Jack Robinson’.

They must have known that everyone I met would have laughed and said the same thing Every time Everyone.”He looked miserable He sat down. If we succumb to the temptation, how can we blame other people for doing it?”The ensuing silence was broken by another member.”My name is Larry,” he said “You wouldn’t think that caused me problems Happy as Larry. Such a harmless expression, isn’t it? But it has caused me endless grief. Every time I am feeling less than ecstatic, people say: Cheer up, Larry! Not as happy as Larry, are we? Must be some other Larry, then! I don’t know who Larry was, but I could cheerfully murder him. If you are a famous Charlie, you don’t get called a proper Charlie. It didn’t happen to Charlie Chaplin, or Charlie Watts, or …

or …”He searched for another Charlie.”It might happen to Prince Charles,” said someone.There was laughter, until the chairman rapped the table.”Order, order! One of the ground rules of Names Anonymous is that we don’t make fun of anyone because of their name. Today we profile one of the many new self-help groups springing up round Britain

There must have been about 50 men in the room. Mandelson, king of spin, is revealed as a cheap illusionist spinning nothing more meaningful than plates on sticks.The protectionists of Europe – and Mandelson, with his deal on quotas, has become one – may be hypocrites. The West, so far, has used the cover of “free trade” to rein in the presumptions of its workforces and exploit the poverty of other nations. Sustainable economies service their own markets, trading only in what they can’t produce for themselves, not in what they can make more cheaply than anyone else.China may have its moment of glory, but as its own economy expands, it too will face raised expectations among workers who will want the things they make for themselves as well, and the time to enjoy the getting and having of them Mandelson may be taking the blame at the moment. But those who believe that truly free trade is the answer (and that includes the mainstream of the Make Poverty History campaign) are wrong.

But the free marketeers are even greater hypocrites, pretending to champion the poor of Britain (the Tories) and the poor of the world (Labour), when in fact they champion the rich, as capitalism by definition does. Western capitalist politicians may only now be beginning to grasp that this is not a sustainable model, for all sorts of reasons. But they are already stuck in their own economic cycles, unable to make a stand against cheap imports and the human exploitation behind them, because their own popularity relies on maintaining consumer spending and expanding economies in their own countries. Typically, they’ll get two days off a month, and a 10-day holiday at Chinese new year. Even though they get a pittance for their labours, they feel rich, partly because they are earning 10 times what they would from working on the land, and partly because they have no time or energy left over to spend any of their money anyway.If this sounds just like Britain back in the days before social reformers pointed out the sheer wickedness of exploiting the weak so ruthlessly, then that of course is the whole idea. They work literally like slaves, themselves obliged to make a punishing quota of items each day before they collapse into bed in their company-provided dormitories in the purpose-built factory towns that they hardly ever leave.