OK, so a friend of mine needed me, at no notice, to countersign his son's passport application, for which (I discovered when I'd nearly completed the form) I needed my passport number. Where's my passport? I don't know. Must have put it down somewhere.

So, is there any way of finding it out without having it to hand? I know, why don't I ring the Passport Office Information Line?

When you ring the Passport Office Information Line, you get a recorded bloke talking incredibly slowly, saying "For advice on <list of about ten things read really slowly>, call the Passport Office Information Info Line <no, I swear> on **** ******. Calls cost £1.50 per minute."

So I ring the Passport Office Information Info Line, and there's this same bloke, reading equally slowly, at £1.50 a minute, a list of exactly what to do in all of the ten information-seeking scenarios he mentioned on the other line. He keeps saying "Address and telephone numbers of the relevant operators will be given in a few moments."

Then, after about four minutes, the line suddenly goes dead.

Fucking useless fucking cunt-faced cunts.

I still don't know where I've put my passport. In the end, I rang (a) a colleague I'd faxed a photocopy to before my UAE trip, and (b) the hotel I'd stayed in in Maastricht, and got the number to my friend just in time.

But, I mean, you know, what the fuck? Premium lines where they talk at half speed and you never get a chance to talk to an actual person? If I'd wanted that I'd have called one of those numbers Nishlord posted.

We pay these bastards you know.