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We're all just one photo booth away from mass murder...


You may remember I got a bit, well, uptight about having to have my driving licence renewed simply because my photo was ten years old.

Since then, I have discovered that, if you haven't moved house (or changed name, or sex or er... some other stuff) you haven't ever had to have applied for a photocard driving licence. Which means, in terms of being able to identify that the driving licence is yours you simply have to know the name and address on it (and assumingly be appropriately male or female). So I'm paying out AGAIN for something that some people don't even need to have. What's that weird noise? Oh... it's my teeth grinding.

Anyway, I went to Tesco's today (and inadvertently spent over £100 on shopping when we didn't actually have more than 10 things on the shopping list - but that's another story) and got the photo done.

Gone are the days of getting four attempts to look good and then waiting 10 minutes for a damp piece of photo paper. Now it's all computer wizardry and a laser printer. Mind you, technology can't sort out one thing; Any photo you have taken in a photo booth comes out looking like it should have a prison number underneath. When did I stop being young, vibrant and handsome and turn into the scary psychopath in my photo? And when did I suddenly age 10 years? I swear I was in my 40's when I arrived at Tesco's. Why's there a balding, pudgy mad-eyed murderer in my picture?! Wah!

I now feel sympathy for all those individuals on the news - you know the sort of thing; "A man was arrested today for the viscous assault on an elderly lady and her hamster" - cue picture of evil looking bastard. I now know that aforementioned nutter probably looked perfectly normal in the mirror when he had a shower that morning. By the time his photo-booth picture made the news, we all looked at it and thought "yeah - look at him... obviously guilty. Look at his sinister features".

And now I have to live with an evil, twisted goblin looking back at me from my driving licence for the next decade.

It's not right, I tell you...

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