Friend is deported. What now? LonDumb - Part II
trickaduu.com
trickaduu.com
However, I read enough to discover how the deportation started, and I can understand why an official would have difficulty believing that a professional singer would be performing publicly for no comercial gain, if not for a charity gig.
There's really no need for the whole thing to be so damn Kafkaesque (shut in empty rooms, not told what's going on for hours), but in all likelihood that's more to do with the sheer incompetence of UK airport staff than any actual malice. And they really are incompetent.
I saw a fight break out in the passport line at heathrow airport one day, over a racist slur. I was amazed how far the staff let it go, they seemed compltely disinterested. In fact other civilians had to restrain the two fighters and the staff still did nothing until some of us started shouting "Aren't you going to get off your arses and bloody do anything?"
Useless bastards...
The waiting tables example is "obvious", and while some activities are only compensated for a small elite (playing basketball, musical performance), there are a lot of activities that might be compensated and might not. Or be compensated indirectly.
For example, speaking at an academic or professional conference is "work", but it is probably not compensated (except possibly for a keynote or lead speaker). An author giving a book tour is work, but they are not getting paid for talks - instead, they may be "paid" in greater exposure for their work and possible increased sales.
There are some other exceptions but most work or work-like activities you'd need a visa of some sort for.
London 101 though: It's tricky to see Big Ben as it's one of the bells housed inside the tower. The tower is officially called "Elizabeth Tower" (recently changed from the "Clock Tower" in honour of the Jubilee).
There are tours to see the bells (and Big Ben itself) but they seem to be only available to UK residents via their MPs. I've never bothered to try (I'd rather sort out a tour of Lord's cricket ground first).
I've realised a good analogy would be if a golfer was going somewhere on holidays and was going to play a few rounds of leisurely golf with friends while he was there.
The thing with the woman officer who stopped my friend and then interviewed her was that woman lied saying that she phoned music venues and they told her how many thousands of pounds my friend was going to be making. Completely. Ridiculously. Fabricated. Just started making stuff up to back up her case.
That said, it's terrible for the typical HN purpose, which is to extract maximum information in minimum time. I skimmed a bit, said, "Wha?" and moved on.
I tend to read about people who travel and casually break immigration rules with a certain level of schadenfreude, whether it's singers just casually lining up some gigs or people who overstay their 3 month visa waiver to the USA.
Some people think filling in an ESTA is effort (man I have to spend weeks preparing paperwork to be able to be granted a visa that allows me to fill in an ESTA in the first place), but events like these make me realise that at least some people get a small taste of what it's like for the rest of us who spend part of our lives having to deal with ever changing rules and paperwork and being at the mercy of the mood of an immigration official.
If you are in transit, quite common for Heathrow, don't mention you have family in the UK unless they ask for family in the UK. If they do ask know where they live. If you have a tourist visa don't mention work you plan to or might be doing in the near future in the UK.
They are there to try and trip you up in a lie so they can question you further. You know how you can tell someone is lying by the way they go into too much detail on some aspects of their story but not others, don't be that person.
They showed that Britain had experienced such massive immigration in the past ten years that native Britons are now a minority in their own capital city. Given that, it's not surprising if immigration officials are becoming a little over zealous.
The return ticket doesn't really factor into it: whether you're entering the UK, US, wherever - generally if you're going in on a tourist visa / waiver you can't work. And unless you have some documentation indicating your gigs are unpaid, you've only got your word...which isn't worth much.
I'm not sure on the specific rules for the UK, but yeah 'I'm going to play a few gigs, but, uh, don't worry I'm not getting paid for them' probably is a bad thing to say.
sorry for being off topic but it annoyed the hell out of me.