On any given day

WOW it looks like I had drawn some negative attention from some people with my repeated rantings about the Canadian visa bastards. Some say the blogs are now shifting towards the cussing end of spectrum and looking like Eminem lyrics (while the Real Slim Shady himself is getting more mainstream!). Well, that may be true. But please don't expect me to go out there to molly coddle those bigoted racist bastards at the other end of the table any time soon.

Now don't let it sound like a black & white thing. This being my profession, I do know what stress these guys are under. And I also understand the need for an effective immigration control in those countries concerned. Most of all, each day I face the moral dilemma between helping out someone whom I know would overstay his welcome whither he goeth, (and) making a living. The problem is not whether those bogus asylum seekers and overstaying fellows are morally repugnant or not, but whether the means we employ to weed them out is morally repugnant. If some people who legally gain entry into either UK or Canada then revert to their natural form, then we got a bug in our system. Acting like right bastards is certainly not a strategy advisable to a nation's representatives overseas. That would only push some characters to become more devious and would also set stage for development of an underground visa racket. During the past decade many foreign missions have had their visa officers ensnared by these operatives and some had even taken matters into their own hands, Visa for Sex scandal in US embassy being a good example.

Think I am exaggerating? I kid you not fellers, going price of Canada visa is US$10,000 around here, and that is the fee of the visa bastard – the Agent of course charges more (about 20K or more). For some reason, I have not come across a “bought” visa for UK recently, but its only a matter of time I guess. Like in every good detective story, the trail runs cold sometimes.... only till a w@nker at the HC wakes up from his you know what induced myopia and develop hots for some real stuff... Things you could ill afford with salary but petty cash with what you get from selling one or a few of them stickers..

I do not pretend to have a solution here, but I suppose their own countries' legal systems ought to have adequate laws to deal with illegal immigration. If those laws you prefer to introduce to curb illegal immigration draw flack from your own population (as is the case in UK – or better still as in the case of defeat of that Carla Bruni hand job in France less than a week ago), then you got a major bug in your system. Now I don’t want to sound like a BNF sympathiser here, but I too believe those boys have a point there. It's no good when people in a certain country feel unsafe of their own culture and future well-being due to immigration. So I suggest that we allow those people who are genuine enough to come and visit (and then return back!), and even let those who make a genuine effort to integrate to stay. That’s just fine. If you honestly try to weed out those who try to exploit the system, then that too is fine with me. But this sledgehammer policy of murdering every applicant is incomprehensible to me and it's tainted with racism and prejudice. Would you like to be associated with such a clan?

Well, why don't you take just one look at the two HCs in question, there is no need to go in, a mere glance will suffice. Looking like unwelcoming fortresses, with those toss pots holed up in there behind bullet proof glass partitions, irreverent telephone skills coupled with zero public relations, they simply don't convey a positive message to anyone. No they don't cut a good image – with anyone. I once took a UK national to his own mission and just one look at the edifice did him in. He later told me he thought he was being taken to a Abu Ghraib style military establishment for questioning! Mind you, they'd been very polite once the fellow got inside, its just that edifice scares the shite out of any normal human being. So much for the image conveyed by representatives of friendly nations. Now don't tell me its security concerns coz whore houses and casinos here don't have fortress walls or toughened glass two way mirrors. Period.