Citzenship Tantrums

Naturally, this being me, the day of my citizenship ceremony could not possibly go smoothly. Firstly, my papers were sent to the wrong Borough so I had to have my ceremony in Hackney instead of Islington. This meant doing the trek to Hackney, which I had because it’s bus and overground dependent and these systems of transport are random at best.

I had to wait 20 minutes for a sufficiently empty bus at Holloway to get take me to Highbury and Islington station. I thought I was going to miss my train. The train timetable tv on the platform was broken so I had to ask The Man who said the trains were running on time. Phew. It was 8:35 so I had a few minutes to spare before the 8:40 train.

I was sitting reading my paper when Andreea appeared as if by magic. Then the announcement “The next train to arrive at platform two will be the delayed 8:26 service to North Woolwich. On Time My Ass.

The morning was crisp and sunny. I wore my fabulous new coat with the tweed and faux-fur collar. Despite Hackney being generally crap the town hall is actually rather splendid in its 1930s Art Deco style. The newly re-done Hackney Empire Theatre next to it also seemed out of place with it’s simple yet impressive style.

Inside they tried to make me wear a stick on name badge that I refused on the grounds that they did not go with my outfit.

Andreea and I sat in a waiting area for bit, and Lloyd and Khalid joined us. We were then ushered upstairs to an open waiting area that had lovely light fixtures. We were provided with tea, coffee, juice and pastries.

After a while we were ushered into a kind of debate room, which had an awesome art deco light-fixture centre piece and plushy green seats that faced an ornate bench. There was tasteful wood-panelling and official sound recorded music playing.

Philippa officiated the ceremony and she was very lovely. The ceremony was overseen by the Speaker for Hackney Council, who sat at the bench and gave a short speech on what it means to be a citizen.

We then had to stand one at a time and recite our allegiance to the Crown (which I thought was wrong, it should be allegiance to Britian). Most of the people there were proper foreign, like. Their English was very poor and Philippa seemed relieved that I and some other guy spoke English as our first language.

Once everyone gave their allegiance we had to stand as a group and give an oath. Then the speaker called our names and handed out our naturalisation certificates and some cheesy recorded music came on again.

There was an official photographer taking photos, but I also had Andreea, Khalid and Lloyd taking pictures to which the Speaker said “Who’s the paparazzi here for, you or me?”

We were also given a Hackney/ Home Office goodie bag with information and a commemorative pen. Woooh!

Then the ceremony was over, and we had a brief chat with the speaker and Philippa about the building. They told us that due to lack of funds not much had been changed in the town hall since it was built in 1936, which they were pleased about.

We then made our way out of the building and I was posing for silly photos outside when I realised that the bag containing my certificate was missing. I had security guards, ushers, the reception people, Philippa and Khalid running around looking for it. The Speaker was called and coming down.

I checked the toilets, the reception area, the hall where the ceremony took place but I could not find it. I was having a proper barney in the Town Hall reception when I realised I had hung it up on a hook on the back of the toilet cubicle door.

I felt like a massive Muppet and walked out very quickly with Khalid laughing at me. Lloyd wanted me to go back in and go out again to get a better picture but I refused.

We hopped on a 55 bus and decide to have a coffee at Turnmills to see how it works during its day job; however, Lloyd’s dad rang to say he was on the way to their place in Walthomstow, which they had forgotten about so they promptly left.

Andreea and I decided to go all the way into town so we had a late breakfast at Patisserie Valerie. They do gorgeous scrambled eggs. Vanessa joined us for a while, but then we had to go on to work.

The gang at the office had bought me an Union Jack to put on my chair. Lisa grabbed the newsletter from David Blunkett that came with my Citizenship goodie bag and promptly put a dart through his picture.