Changing one's address on a driving licence used to be a simple matter of filling in the back of a form. Nowadays the new photocard licence has to be issued. This involves getting photographs (why do they always look like convicts?) – then completing a long form and sending it away with either a passport or birth and marriage certificates. If you don't trust the post, it means going to a specially designated post office to produce the documents and pay ?4. As I cannot find out where to go, I suppose it means trusting Royal Mail.
When I first started work in insurance, it was as a lowly clerk and my main job was to deal with changes of address. There were index cards of various kinds to be altered, files to bring up to date, an acknowledgement to be sent, an order to any policy that might require amendment and a record of everything that had been done so it could be traced back to me. Nowadays it can all be done on computer. Simple you might think. Not so. Because of security problems, it takes an arm and a leg to convince an operative that I am who I say I am. Then there are all sorts of hoops to jump through. I keep forgetting passwords and secret questions and having to go back to the beginning of the process, which means hanging on an automated telephone line for fifteen minutes.
Ah well – these are all the joys of moving house.