Testing my patience

[humphrey_clarke]

As some of you might be aware my wife is an American citizen and therefore regarded as suspicious and ‘foreign’ by the U.K’s bureaucratic establishment. As penance for this we have had to undergo many hardships, including queuing up with the asylum seekers at UK Customs and immigration in Croydon and having to shell out vast sums of money to get

Comments

[gillyg]

We issue a steady stream of citizenship test books at the library. I was astounded by the questions asked when I flicked through a copy-I evidently fail as a UK citizen.

[humphrey_clarke]

Yep me too, but they seem to want me to stay and pay taxes rather than kick me out.

[whinknee]

At least Katie gets to take the citizenship test already. Had you moved to the US they would insist on checking you were human every few years, and only after determining that 3 or 4 times would let you take the citizenship test.

Besides, I think governments get their most money from immigrants, they know it is a steady source of income and most people will pay it no matter how much it is. How else do you think they pay for all their cock-ups.

[humphrey_clarke]

Great, I'm sure I'll have to go through that process at some point. It was far easier in the days you could just get on a boat.

[whinknee]

But then you had to crowd on a small boat with thousands of people for a really long time. Plus, I don't think they were very nice on the other end.

[humphrey_clarke]

Damn, you ruined my nostalgia

[davidn]

I didn't know that we had anything as stupid as a citizenship test, actually. I'm still a long way off my own.

[humphrey_clarke]

Yep, gotta love anti-immigrant agitation from the Daily Mail.

[matttt]

This vile assessment contains such questions as ‘How much does a colour TV licence cost?’ and ‘What percentage of the UK’s population are Catholics?’.

The correct British answers, as opposed to those determined by the setters of the test, are something along the lines of 'I'll find out if I need to buy one' and 'Why should I care?'

It would be interesting to see how an answer paper, full of such 'real' answers, would be marked.

[humphrey_clarke]

Interestingly Noel Edmonds has started a campaign to reform the character of the country and the first step is for us all to stop paying the licence fee. Accordingly to be a responsible citizen one should ignore that question or lie and say you don't own a TV.

[bonappetite]

A few years ago someone printed a question regarding where Santa Claus lives. The official UK answer was The North Pole but the test makers also included Finland as an answer, which is, for many British, where they are told Santa lives, with the Sami and the reindeer. It was ridiculous because BOTH answers are British answers.