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Excitingly I’ve finally succeeded in naturalising, and as of today I am a fully paid up member of the United Kingdom!
Naturally, this was much more complicated than it might sound. The process went something like this:
Enter the UK
Live and work here for four years
Surrender passport for 2 months and pay up £400 to get “Indefinite Leave to Remain”.
Live and work in the UK for another year.
Pay £10 for book “Life in the UK” and study obscure facts all weekend.
Pay £20 to sit and pass “Life in the UK” test.
Fill out insanely long naturalisation application form including dated details of every trip out of the country in the last five years.
Send in said application form along with another £400 pounds and passport for another two months
Take time off work to attend citizenship ceremony
Realise at last minute that essential Home Office letter has been left at work beg friendly collegue to leave work in order to deliver it to me.
Catch taxi in heaviest snow dump in London in years to what taxi driver assures me is as just around the corner from citizenship ceremony location.
Run through the snow and ice wearing a three-piece suit for five blocks only to discover driver is completely wrong.
Ask directions and run a further five blocks over snow and ice wearing three-piece suit only to discover that authorities have cunningly decided at last minute to relocate ceremony to three blocks in opposite direction from where taxi dropped me off… and not inform anyone.
Stride 13 blocks in opposite direction to arrive at correct location hot as hell, have no-one bother to check said “essential” home office letter, and be kept waiting another 30 minutes.
Sit through 90 minutes of “solemn and significant” ceremony while degenerate toddler offspring of a fellow arab immigrant jump up and down on chairs and attempt to drown out speakers through high-pitched warbling.
Finally recieve naturalisation “certificate” and realise wearily that this is NOT a passport and I still have to go through another rigmarole (and yet more expense) to get one of those!
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Fun, fun, fun! Still, it’s nice to be British and have an excuse for whinging at last. 
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