(LIP)AD BAYAN, (LIP)AD!

We're on a hot country promotion streak right now!  Just over a week ago, we had the PAL ads sprout all over London.  Today, our old "Friends" got all the major UK dailies to carry print and online Philippine promos, to marviralous results!

Post by The Philippine Embassy, London.

I-bloody push 'yan! 

The ads, of course, are gorgeous and their reach is in the tens of millions.  Yet a word of caution: you won't get to control what news story lands next to your carefully crafted commercial, and the juxtaposition can be...unpleasant.

really unpleasant 

  

And which juxtaposition brings us full circle to diplomatic shenanigans and those PAL ads again...

Push mo pa rin 'yan, teh!

YOU SHALL NOT PASS(PORT)

It's been a pretty bad stretch of press for our counterparts at the British passport and airport offices. First, they faced a backlog of applications so ginormous there were high profile Parliamentary charges, apologies and investigations.

The initial findings    

This was followed by a series of stories of people who mistakenly grabbed and used someone else's passport, and went on to be totally not chill about it

The internet reacted with its usual objectivity

So what do you do when you're faced with such bad publicity?  You go on strike of course!

Which went over well

To this point, I had some empathy for the passport and airport workers -- heaven knows it can be a hard and thankless job. However, recent incidents left me more conflicted...on a very personal level

Good thing I didn't include the LLDD-baby's "Ma. Leia Organa" second name in her British birth certificate  

I needed to consult "certain" foreign office colleagues on such a landmark issue.  The consensus:  as much as we would like to support the rebellion and its travel plans, as civil servants we are duty bound to follow the express provisions of the passport law, i.e., "in case of a discrepancy between the applicant's name in the birth certificate and in any other private documents, the former shall prevail over the latter..."

...BUT without prejudice to waving a hand and stating under oath: 'You do not need to see my identification' ".

LIPAD BAYAN, LIPAD!

So ads of our flag carrier have popped up all over London newspapers and billboards this week...

...including these ones at Kings Cross station...

  

There's a better way to travel now, all you nerds heading to Platform 9 3/4! 

Now, whatever else you may think of the airline back home, trust me, you'll get patrio-goosebumps seeing our country's name and colors flashing high up and bright over a foreign land.  Although in fairness, I'm also pumped for their fiercest competitor to start its flights to London and unleash ads as only they can...

Post by When In Manila.

The "What the bloody hell"s will be heard from Manchester to Mandaue  

ADVENTURES IN INVIOLABILITY JUST GOT REAL

Serves me right, I suppose.  No sooner do I write about diplomatic residential adventures does something hit home -- literally.

Last Tuesday, close to 11 o'clock at night, I'm at home ironing shirts while watching TV and drinking cider (as you do), when there's a loud series of knocks on our door.  I scramble to turn everything off and get to door lest the noise wake up the LLDD-baby and have hell to pay.

From outside I hear a couple of muffled voices.

"We're from the EMS...(muffle muffle)...here to pick up...(muffle muffle)...(gives a Anglo-sounding name, let's say 'Mark Madsen')...at this address"

"You've got the wrong place", I reply from behind the closed locked door.  "There's no one here by that name"

"(muffle muffle)...called and have to pick up Mark Madsen...(muffle muffle)"

"And I'm telling you you got it wrong, no one in this house ordered a taxi", I say thinking one of my neighbours is named Mark Madsen and is now wondering where the hell's the taxi he ordered.

"And I'm telling you, mate" barks the outside voice, no longer muffled "we're not a taxi, we're from the courts!  Now open the door please, we wan't to talk to you!"

Whoa.  Time for me to play the D-card.

"I'm a Diplomat and this is a registered diplomatic residence" I say with sudden-onset British accent. "I can talk to you but I can't let you in."

Just the briefest of pauses, then "So there's no Mark Madsen here?"

"No!" I say with the slightest of piyoks.  "I've been living here for five years!" 

I hear some more muffled talking, silence, then footsteps walking away, then the distinct sound of our gate closing. The men had left unseen, without me stepping within a foot of our peephole, let alone coming close to ever opening the door.

    The Purge 2 had just premiered in London that week, you see

I quickly google "EMS" on my phone while getting back to ironing and cider (as you do) and find three possibilities: Express Mail Service, the European Meteorological Society, or Electronic Monitoring System. So unless the FedEx guy or the cute Euronews weather girl are suddenly into late-night housecalls, I'm guessing the men at my door were looking to cuff and tag a bail-jumper named Mark Madsen, and they thought he was staying in my house!

Despite it being close to midnight, I text my landlord and tell him what happened on the chance Mark Madsen is a former tenant of the property and maybe left a forwarding address where he could be found (as bail jumpers do).  "Never heard of him" my landlord texts right back.  "It's a good thing you didn't open the door!"

      well, like I said...

The following evening, I'm watering the plants out on our driveway, and I hear the distinct sound of our gate opening.  I see two burly-ish men in matching blue overalls walk up to our doorstep.   It's slightly earlier than the night before and there's still some summer daylight left and people out on the street, so I decide to stand my ground (the LLDD-Hyphen-L had also latched the door behind me, so I really didn't have a choice). They introduce themselves once more as from EMS - the Electronic Monitoring System (dammit, so much for the cute weather girl).  They confirm that they are looking for an accused named Mark Madsen to tag him, and their records show that he lives precisely at my current address.  

"But like I told you before, there's no Mark Madsen here!"

The men say they believe me, but that they're just doing their job. And their job requires them to visit a suspected address three times in search of an accused, and if they still don't find him after that third try, it will be the police that will come calling.

"So we'll be coming again tomorrow night" said one of the men. "And if we still don't find him here, the police will come and they can forcibly enter the premises if necessary."

Whoa, whoa, WHOA.   Time for me to drop the D-Bomb.

"I'm calling the DPG"    

I like to think I called up a control centre that was set up like something straight out of "24", because I can now hastily and anti-climactically wrap this whole story up by saying my one call to DPG got everything...sorted.  The confusion as to addresses was cleared up, the EMS men did not return a third night, and I even got an apologetic phone call from the local police assuring me that they would not be entering my house any time soon.

So Viva la Vienna Convention! Viva el DPG!

 Word