When I came to Australia my producers sorted out my visa. As I had requested it to last to the 4th May (and as it was an electronic visa and thus there was nothing in my passport) I had assumed that this was the case.
Today I got a phone call from Emma, one of my producers saying that the visa had only run to the end of the festival and that I would need to go and apply for a visitor's one.
This had happened last year too, so I wasn't unduly concerned, but I had known in advance last time and had got the new visa whilst my old one was still valid. Emma didn't seem to be quite sure when the working visa ran out or if it had done already. We joked uneasily about me being kicked out of the country. Our laughter was forced.
I had a three hour wait in the relevant department as I waited for my number to come up. Ross Noble was also there. His effortless Geordie humour helped pass the time.
Eventually I got to go to desk 18. The woman there greeted me in a friendly fashion. Even the bureaucrats are better in this country! I explained the situation and she called up my details on screen.
She then did something that I hadn't expected of a civil servant. She sang that small descending refrain of music that you get in horror films when something bad has happened - "Duh duh duhhhhh!"
That would immediately make you think that something bad had happened, but not something so serious that you have to worry too much.
She said "Your visa ran out yesterday."
In the interim I had been back to my hotel and found a piece of paper that had told me this, so I said, "I know, but no-one had told me this until today."
She said, "I can't give you a visa, unless you have extreme circumstances that stopped you from getting one before yesterday."
My heart leapt into my throat. Was I about to be sent home? Her cheery demeanour suggested not, but then she was Australian, maybe they are cheerful even when breaking bad news.
I said, "Well I only found out about it today."
"That isn't enough," she replied, "You are expected to know the dates of your own visa."
I was waiting for the, "But it's OK, because you can do this...." that her attitude suggested would soon follow. But it wasn't looking good.
Eventually she asked when my flight was and said that if I went to the 15th floor I might be able to get an extension to those dates. Still anxious, I asked whether that was likely. She seemed to think it was and told me not to worry, that I wasn't going to get thrown in gaol in anything. I wasn't really worried about that. I was going to be sent somewhere much worse. Balham.
That would have been such an anticlimax.
I went upstairs, was seen to immediately and was given a paper visa extension within ten minutes. If I had got a visitor's visa, it would have cost me $160. I was expecting some kind of similar renumeration and possibly a fine. But the man handed over my visa, told me I had to inform him if I stayed anywhere else other than my hotel and wished me good day. "Is that it?" I tentatively enquired, almost adding "Don't I have to pay you something?"
He said that was all that was required.
I went back to my hotel, realising that over-staying on my working visa had actually saved me around about 50 quid and in fact had I realised in advance that I just had to go up to the fifteenth floor I would have been in and out of the place in 15 minutes, rather than the three hours or so the whole thing took.
Who said crime doesn't pay?
