Mission Impossible!

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to try and find the Australian Consulate in Edinburgh.

I swear that the place doesn't exist.

Isla and I headed through to the 'Burg yesterday as we needed to rectify a faux pas that we made with our visa. We recently updated our passports to those new ones with the micro chips in them so that Big Brother can have an easier time tracking our movements and the powers that be can continue their War of Terror (as Borat put it!) by knowing where their friendlies are so that they can abuse their power by fingering me in the airports (up yours Denver!).

Anyway, the new passports have different numbers which don't correspond to the ones that are on the Electronic Visa acceptance thingy, so we had to head to the Consulate to try and get the numbers changed.

I dare you to have a look on the Net for the Consulate and see if you can find a) more than 1 page with the same address on it and b) a phone number that works and doesn't just go to a crappy info line.

After not baeing able to find it at 69 George St (a derelict doorway) I phoned and 118-118 and they said that is was 93. So we tried this building called Forsythe House and it was just a bunch of accountants. Then I phoned my mate and he looked on the Net again and said that it was 83 (this is on the Australian Government website incidently). But alas, no, There was just some banks and hairdressers around this area. So I phoned another mate who works for the Scotish Exec. and he said that it was 93 (again) so we headed back to Forsythe House and looked again at the brass plated buzzers in the doorway.

Sure enough there WASN'T a sign for the Consulate. There was however, a tiny white piece of paper stuck down with some selotape which said "For Buisnesses not listed here please ring this buzzer" which we did.

The quietest voice in the world said "hello?" which , with my ear pressed against the panel, I could hardly hear.

"Hi, I'm looking for the Australian Consulate" I shouted, assuming that she was probably unable to hear me also, although in hind-sight she was probably thinking "I wish people would stop shouting into the mic down there".

"Wait a moment!"

I wait a moment then her voice whispers back.

"Sorry it's not open today. It's only open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 1pm to 4pm".

What a load of crap. Working for the consulate (note I've stopped using a capital letter as they don't deserve it) must be the cushiest job in the world. Anyway, looks like we are going to be heading back there tomorrow. Oh well, a few more hours away from the Neds can't be a bad thing.