Proof reader required by local on-line 'newspaper'

'Newspaper' is a very loose term for the garbage published by our on-line version of the local paper. This is their latest offering, where they are still discussing people being stopped from travelling where their passport is more than 10 years old.

"Home Office data shows 32million people applied for passports which could be now more than 120 years old - with up to 9 months 'carried over' from previous passports."

I have no idea what they meant to put there.

 

I expect they're on about needing a certain number of months left on your passport when you travel on it, so you have to get a new one several months before the old one actually expires if you want to travel during the last whatever months (6 maybe?) of the old one. No idea what 120 years has to do with anything

 

Simon Calder was just talking about this. I think it is mainly a problem if you are going to the EU. You have to leave there at least 3 months before your passport expires apparently. Why, I have no idea. Surely an expiry date is just that. The US is less fussy and has no such restriction.

 

@JennyJB well spotted. It was the 120 year old passports that I was wondering about. I'm guessing that whoever typed the report hit the '1' and '2' keys at the same time, but didn't bother to read what they had typed before committing to sent it. This is extremely common with our local rag, as nonsensical content is commonplace. If it was a breaking news story it might be more understandable, but many major local news stories don't hit their headlines for several days.

 

Please don't get me started on the local online newspaper @KT53 .
Some very interesting adverts

I buy the paper version for my MIL, and can be heard muttering and tutting all the way through reading it
£2.60 !
I can't see it lasting much longer to be honest.

 

See here Holidaymakers going to EU caught out by 10-year-passport rule

 

Becoming fundamental ID these days, especially for those who don't have a licence, another thing that needs sorting.

 

I think what I’ve heard is that if you renewed your last passport early you had some time carried forward and added on. Then if you renew the next one early, and the next etc, the time carried forward can be cumulative …

 

@Dovefromabove months remaining on the passport being replaced were added to the new passport to a maximum of 9 months. It wasn't cumulative in that if you had 9 months remaining on your last passport, and 9 on the one before that, you wouldn't get 18 months added to the new one. I was initially surprised to read that people are still getting caught by this as it has been widely publicised since the change came in. However, if people haven't been abroad since Covid they probably wouldn't have taken much notice.

 

It's been a while since I renewed a passport. Mine expires (I think) June 2025. Does that mean if I renew it 9 months in advance (September 2024) the new one will expire in June 2035? If that's how it works, I don't see that there's a problem. If the new one would expire in September 2034 ("losing" 9 months) then I see why people might be miffed.
Either way it's not really a newsworthy story.

 

Current problem is the "issue date", in the EU it can't be more than 10 years ago. So a valid expiry for more than 3 month could fail on the issue date for an extended passport.

 

I think my passport is nearly that old, at least it feels like it, not sure who that is in the picture either.

 

Some countries won't let you in witth less than 6 months' validity on your passport. Something else to be wary of is the lead time for getting a new or replacement passport - staff shortages etc mean it can be a long wait sometimes.

 

120 months, if that's what they meant, would be your ten years in months.

Something I've noticed recently is I suspect AI, specifically ChatGPT, is being used by some companies to generate news articles. I use ChatGPT quite a lot, so I've learnt some of its quirky nuances. Such quirky nuances seem to be appearing more frequently in the news lately. I'm not suggesting the articles aren't true. More likely the journalist has just entered their quick notes then asked it to write it up. That's a great use of AI, as long as you proof read the result, because one of the aforesaid quirky nuances is it's terrible wherever numbers are involved. In the example at the start of this thread, it wouldn't surprise me if someone had had both ten years and 120 months in their notes, got ChatGPT to write it up, it's smashed the bits together and nobody has proof read it before publication.