A routine visit to the Department of Home Affairs to apply for a new identity document turned into an Orwellian apparent loss of statehood for the writer.

"You can't have an ID card."

When a Home Affairs official tells you that you can't have the thing they've been saying you have to get from them, it's, what? Kafkaesque, Alice in Wonderlandish, or just an everyday S&M tangle with red tape?

It's fickle, for starters. I'll get to the conspiracy bit later.

My wife had decided that a dinky little ID card would be more convenient than the green book, so to get a "twofer" for the price of one trip we went together. I was due for an update anyway. The face that officials check to verify that I am me is only just coming into adulthood and so can't be said to be proof of ID. Besides, my ID book is tatty and has lost its cover, so I was looking forward to being able to proffer something less embarrassing on demand.

Now, if my wife were telling this story, it would be about the whizz-bang efficiency of Home Affairs. Proof that a single moment does not define all and everything in the way Comments Sectioners like to serve up reality.

Twenty minutes. That's...