So I have my business visa and passport back - all done and dusted within about 36 hours all told. I went to the Nigerian Embassy at Leeson Park, waited around with my ticket watching the ticker until I got called in - maybe an hour after they opened.

Went in, said what I wanted and handed over the docco - the guy leafed through it ‘yes, yes, you have that - ok you need a - oh, its here. Thats fine, I just need a €40 postal order or bank draft”. I said I’d get it and off I went, brisk stroll to a post office in the sunshine, got the postal order and back again. Got a new ticket for the queue, not seconds before the gate-keeper came out and took the tickey reels out of the dispensers.

Wow, thought I, timing.

I waited a bit more, got to the front, handed over the postal order and the guy said ‘come back tomorrow between 2-4.” Ah, but my flights are this evening, I have to go back to work in Scotland. “You can’t come tomorrow?” he said. There was tone of voice that made me think ‘hm, I’d better adjust my flights’.

And so I did, and the next day I came back, repeated performance - took a ticket, got in line, got to the top, the guy said ‘here’ and off I went. All told, face to face contact time was maybe two minutes on three seperate occassions, processing time was within 24 hours and the sole drag was just waiting in line. My sole critique is that it doesn’t say anywhere what the consular fees in Dublin are, if I’d known that then I could have had my postal order in hand and chopped a third off my hanging around time

If this is the worst of my travails over all of this, I shall count myself very, very lucky indeed.

I have a funky big visa just like the old days now, not like this modern free travel EU no border stamps business.