border protection, doin’ it tough
Everyone knows policemen can be dills because everyone knew a dill at school who became a policeman. This is the plain truth.
The same applies to the Border Protection officials, worldwide, the people who legitimise your exits and stamp your entries. These people aren’t dills, they come from a different category in the school years. These were the Prefects. To be a Prefect meant, by definition, that you were authorised to enforce discipline.
These were the kind of guys we wanted, just once, to run on in a serious game of rugby – on the other side. Just the once but it never happened because Prefects didn’t play rugby. Border Protection agents don’t play either, they just want your arse for a little while. Like this narrow faced, bespectacled, all tired out little uniform checking exit slips and passports at HK airport today. Your exit slip doesn’t please him so he flicks both it and your passport back without bothering to look up, and he spits, ‘do it again ‘ before looking right over your shoulder at who’s next.
Now he’s got your arse in the queue again until the piece of paper is right. Discipline. It’s where someone just has to do what they say. Nobody needs a gun to get things done.
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