younosygit

I'm planning a short break in Dublin at the end of next month, but looking at the online hotel booking sites there are hardly any rooms available on the night of Friday August 31st/Saturday September 1st. Anytime in the week before - plenty of hotels with rooms; that night, I think there were 6 hotels in the whole of Co Dublin with a room free (and not cheap!), so is there something special happening that weekend?

Just considering how many times she's heard the national anthem in the last 3 days alone, I was wondering how many times she must have heard it in the last 60 years. She must be sick of the sound of it by now!

It's time for me to renew my UK passport, and as I'm still recognisably the same person as in the photo of my passport issued in 2001 all I need to do is sign the form they printed out from my online application (which basically just has my name, address, date and place of birth, and last passport number), include two recent photos of myself, my old passport, and £77.50.

All of which makes me wonder.... Passports nowadays have this wonderful RFID chip in the cover, but as I've continually held a passport since 1982 I have never been interviewed by any officials, had my fingerprints taken, or been photographed by anything more sophisticated than my local railway station photo booth. So what do they actually put on the RFID chip? And what is it about the chip that makes them charge more than three times the amount my last non-chip passport cost in 2001 (£24 if I remember correctly) if they've not got any more information to put on it than they had before? Is it just a money-making scheme by the government to fleece travellers?