It has been almost 150 years since the Great Exhibition at Crystal Palace, London. Now coming to think of that, did people visiting there had to bear the tub thumpers on soap boxes in 1851? Well I don’t know. We live in a different century you see. The Great Exhibition was the biggest event in its day. Coming to our times, the Spring Fair International at NEC, Birmingham is one of the biggest events opening doors to gem & jewellery traders like my customer, a refined young man wearing a tentative smile on his face, with an almost disarming expression on his youngish face.
Now what could be the issue with you? So I go on, with the routine questions some teetering on the darkest edge of personal life including … oh never mind. Why do you want to know these things, he asks. Because the visa officer would ask them himself, I retort, another routine answer. Touchy times, desperate effort of keeping the balance between professional need to know to things and not getting carried away with over enthusiasm. Besides what would the neighbours think if they overheard… Chatting him up, I was wondering myself “are all gem dealers this honest?”, “were all those horror stories I hear just Chinese whispers?”
Well, he wanted to go to the Spring Fair Exhibition at NEC. Had all the documents handy, being around to a few international exhibitions previously, had the money, the licensing, the goods, the invitation, the official documents, the list never ends. He could have sold an over priced sand pebble passing on as the most valuable gemstone to a genteel white man on the streets of Birmingham without any fuss. He just had every conceivable requirement, mind you, they were all genuine too.
So we fill the applications, sift through the documents, decided what to include and what not to, look for cross reference, ask ourselves the questions the visa officer would ask, verify the documents, make phone calls to banks, print docs and all.
At the end, he asks me, “what is the probability of me getting the visa in good time?” Its two months to the exhibition, and he could take documents to the Bank of England to get a spot cash loan for them. Unless that 2012 thing takes place before schedule (who knows if the Mayans got an year wrong without all these Casio calculators to help them out!), its 100%. Off he flies to the VSF to handover the packet.
Now its all a waiting game, one with a foregone conclusion I need not lose any sleep over it. I relax in my swivel chair, turn 12 degrees to take a good look at the girls passing on the street outside. Ah, some have it all.
