When I signed up to the Navy way back when, I supplied my birth cert, N.I. number card, bank statement and a phone bill.
With those docs, I could in principle then go on to serve aboard the deadliest, most secret engines of war mankind has ever conceived.
Yet today I received a letter back from the SIA (the authority that dishes out licences for doormen) stating that that very same birth certificate, because it was only a certified copy, wasn't good enough.
But they'll take a provisional drivers licence, that you can apply for with... You guessed it... A certified copy of a birth certificate.
So, I'm about to go £50 down (sorry, further down) in order to get a provisional drivers licence, to get my SIA licence.
Does anyone else see the irony in the SIA's position here?
Oh, and apparently even though I was homeless in the past 5 years, they still want a postcode, but I've sorted that.