The ITIN saga continues …

Well, since my application for an ITIN seems to have gone AWOL, I’ve tried again. On Wednesday, I made it to London and the US embassy in person.

Access to the embassy wasn’t as painful as it might have been. When I told the uniformed security guard outside I wanted IRS, she directed me to the shortest and fastest-moving of three queues to go through security. The security itself was indeed paranoid: for example, they made members of the american family in front of me go through separately, and made me take my belt off (yes, that’s a perfectly normal belt, whose purpose is to hold my trousers up). But noone got shot or otherwise attacked while I was there.

I started explaining the saga to the IRS man, who was deeply suspicious and hostile. But when I pointed out that I was actually presenting him an entirely new application form together with the required supporting documents, he became friendly and helpful. Evidently he’s much happier accepting a routine form than chasing stray paperwork. He happily accepted the form, but told me I now have to wait another twelve weeks for the ITIN itself. Strewth!

I left London from Victoria station, heading for Brighton (blog entry coming), passing Buckingham Palace on the way. They were doing something touristy involving clearing the road of both people and traffic, so I had to wade through hordes of gawping tourists crowded into a stretch of pavement altogether too narrow for the purpose. Bah, Humbug.