F aye Wilson apparently did not realize that her passport — which was issued by the United Kingdom — is apparently tied in rank with the United States as the most powerful passport in the world, as she allegedly used pages from her passport as toilet paper.
Powerful Passport Used as Toilet Paper?
Needing to use a toilet but with no toilet paper supposedly available, Wilson — who is 28 years of age — apparently admitted that she did not even think about the consequences of using several pages from a passport when walking from one bar to another while drunk.
She has reportedly used the passport up to as many as eight times in the five years since she ripped out those pages; but authorities in Thailand — where the hairdresser had hoped to spend a month before traveling on to Australia to work for a year — refused to let her into the country. She was escorted back to the United Kingdom by a security guard.
Wilson — who was supposedly too embarrassed to admit to the authorities in Thailand why the pages from her passport were missing but apparently had no problem admitting to the media what had happened — applied for an emergency passport so that she can return to Thailand as soon as possible and meet the friend she left behind.
Rankings on the Power of Passports Around the World
Passport Index is an interactive tool which collects, displays and ranks the passports of the world based on their Visa Free Score. The higher the Visa Free Score, the better the Passport Power Rank. Passports accumulate points for each visa free country which their holders can visit without a visa; or they can obtain a visa on arrival.
The country list is based on the 193 United Nations member countries plus six territories — such as Macao, Kosovo, etcetera — for a total of 199. Territories annexed to other countries — such as Norfolk Island, French Polynesia, etcetera — are excluded. Data is based on research from publicly available sources; as well as information shared by government agencies.
There is one simple aspect about Passport Index — about which I first found out via this article written by Angelina Aucello of Angelina Travels — is that I can see what all of the passports look like in one place. You can click on the small icon of each passport photograph for a magnified view.
By the way, five passports tie at the bottom with the lowest rank in terms of their power — and those passports are issued by Myanmar, which is also known as Burma; Solomon Islands; Palestinian Territories; São Tomé and Principe; and South Sudan.
Summary
Ripped from the headlines, I am torn as to whether or not to believe that the story of a woman using pages of her passport as toilet paper is really true; but on paper, I just cannot imagine that using pages from a passport for that purpose would be of any use — let alone comfortable…
…not to mention the fact that I only have five blank pages left in my passport book.
For future reference, Faye — bars usually have napkins available; or perhaps you should carry a few tissues with you wherever you go. As a worst-case scenario, you could always wear an adult diaper…
…oh, another thing: it is usually not a good idea to use what is considered government property to use for bodily functions; as there might be a penalty which you could be required to pay in some manner.
Well — at least she detached the pages from her passport book before using them. I would not want to be the immigration officials who handle her passport if she left those pages intact after she used them.
If the story is indeed true, it is one of the more boneheaded situations about which I have read in recent years. I would be flushed with embarrassment if I did what Faye Wilson supposedly did…
Along with passports issued by the United Kingdom, passports issued by the United States are supposedly the most powerful passports in the world. Photograph ©2016 by Brian Cohen.
