The Joy of Borders

'Here I am again at border control, as a lady with epaulettes, savagely bleached hair and a large peaked cap glares first at me and then at my passport. Then she glares at me again. Then she looks in the angled mirror behind me, to check on the back of my head. I do not know why this is important. Perhaps she wants to make sure I am not wearing a wig. That mirror is always there, at every border crossing in every despotism in all the world. I just happen to have walked into this one, whichever it might be.

 

Probably she is a loving mother of six, but at the moment she is intent on glaring. Glaring is, after all, her job. “Good for you,” I am thinking. “Your country may be a squalid tyranny ruled by a lunatic, but at least you don’t let anyone in without checking their documents. How unlike The Country Formerly Known as Great Britain, where anyone can get in these days.

 

With a final glare, she whacks a blurred green entry stamp on my visa and thrusts my European Union passport—there are no British passports any more—back at me under the scratched window of armoured glass. All is in order. Either they haven’t realized what I am up to, or they don’t care. The lock buzzes. I am across. And I am enjoying myself...'

 

Want to read on? You can . It's the opening page of 'Short Breaks in Mordor, my new e-book, which is available at

http://amzn.to/1lCF9OM (UK)

 

 

and

 

 

http://amzn.to/T6wyZJ (USA)