{"id":40,"date":"2002-05-09T01:49:00","date_gmt":"2002-05-09T01:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/blog\/?p=40"},"modified":"2012-12-05T23:38:06","modified_gmt":"2012-12-05T23:38:06","slug":"rob-signing-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/blog\/2002\/05\/09\/rob-signing-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Rob signing in!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Hello everyone from Rob &#8211; the infamous Battersea Park football fouler.<\/p>\n<p>Chris adds: <i>here&#8217;s an action replay, as if you needed reminding<\/i> ;-)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/uk\/battersea\/rob_before.jpg\" style=\"width: 320px;height: 240px\" alt=\"The Infamous Battersea Park Fouler about to get his name\" \/><br \/>\nThe Infamous Battersea Park Fouler about to get his name<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/uk\/battersea\/rob_after.jpg\" style=\"width: 320px;height: 240px\" alt=\"The Infamous Battersea Park Fouler's destiny is decided\" \/><br \/>\nThe Infamous Battersea Park Fouler&#8217;s destiny is decided<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m currently packing my bags to join Phil and Chris in Xiahe, near Lanzhou. I&#8217;ve already had my first taste of Chinese officialdom facing the stern woman behind the glass at the Chinese Embassy in London last Thursday morning. She grabbed my forms without a word and refused to answer any of my questions about bits of the visa application form I couldn&#8217;t complete. As I left the embassy to wait two hours for them to express process my application, I met three travellers on the steps who had been refused a visa, despite having submitted airline tickets, full itinery and contacts in China. I hadn&#8217;t submitted any of this information; I hadn&#8217;t even bought a flight yet, so I wasn&#8217;t very hopeful.<\/p>\n<p>I returned two hours later to face another stern woman behind glass and&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;within minutes my passport was returned to me with the green visa sticker adorning its pages and I was walking elated along Regent&#8217;s Street.<\/p>\n<p>I texted Chris the news from my mobile and as I stood looking out over the busy midday traffic of Oxford Circus, I received his reply saying that they were in the middle of the desert, not a building in sight, on their way to Turpan along the Southern Spice Route. Suddenly the crowds around me seemed very far away.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello everyone from Rob &#8211; the infamous Battersea Park football fouler.<\/p>\n<p>Chris adds: <i>here&#8217;s an action replay, as if you needed reminding<\/i> ;-)<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/uk\/battersea\/rob_before.jpg\" style=\"width: 320px;height: 240px\" alt=\"The Infamous Battersea Park Fouler about to get his name\" \/><br \/>\nThe Infamous Battersea Park Fouler about to get his name<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theball.tv\/common\/images\/2002\/uk\/battersea\/rob_after.jpg\" style=\"width: 320px;height: 240px\" alt=\"The Infamous Battersea Park Fouler's destiny is decided\" \/><br \/>\nThe Infamous Battersea Park Fouler&#8217;s destiny is decided<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m currently packing my bags to join Phil and Chris in Xiahe, near Lanzhou. I&#8217;ve already had my first taste of Chinese officialdom facing the stern woman behind the glass at the Chinese Embassy in London last Thursday morning. She grabbed my forms without a word and refused to answer any of my questions about bits of the visa application form I couldn&#8217;t complete. As I left the embassy to wait two hours for them to express process my application, I met three travellers on the steps who had been refused a visa, despite having submitted airline tickets, full itinery and contacts in China. I hadn&#8217;t submitted any of this information; I hadn&#8217;t even bought a flight yet, so I wasn&#8217;t very hopeful.<\/p>\n<p>I returned two hours later to face another stern woman behind glass and&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"geo":null,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":475,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/475"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theball.tv\/2002\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}