TO find out the Major Irritant of the Week, please go to section 9, fill out the name of your father, details of your grandfather's citizenship and your grandmother's cat's date of birth. If your grandmother never had a cat, or misplaced her cat for any reason, please fill out details of that misplacement in section 10.

For further information, turn to note 9.76 on the back of this form. If you can't locate section 9, and its accompanying note is completely unhelpful, then you have selected a British passport application form C1. We're sorry. Do not pass go. Do not collect $100, but keep reading.

Oh, how I hate filling out forms. Does anyone else find the new British passport application absolutely incomprehensible?

For example: "Are you a married (or widowed or divorced) woman applying for your own passport whose claim to British nationality is through marriage to a British man?"

When you tick no, there's a line that leads all the way to the bottom of the page to another yes or no question. But along the way are little junctions that lead to other questions such as: "Have you been married more than once?" and "What is the full name of your husband's father and his date and location of birth?"

Filling out this form is like playing snakes and ladders. Do they want me to jump from one 'no' to another, or slide all the way to the bottom? Or perhaps, they didn't mean for me to answer any of these questions. Perhaps I was meant to skip this section entirely. Arghh . . .

It would help if my form actually had section numbers. As it turns out, when I arrived at the Immigration office they were out of the original forms, so they'd made photocopies instead. The original section numbers were printed in light yellow, which does not show up at all when photocopied. If it wasn't for little hints at the bottom of the form like, "Go to section 9", I wouldn't even know there was a section 9.

My favourite question is: "Have you been naturalised or registered as a citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies, a British citizen, a British Dependent Territories citizen, a British Overseas citizen, British protected person or British subject?"

But the note does nothing to explain what they mean by naturalised or registered.

My birth is registered in Bermuda. I was born in Bermuda. My parents and grandparents were born in Bermuda. I have a passport that says I'm a citizen. I'm registered to vote in Smith's West, Zone 9. So am I or am I not a registered citizen?

Is the definition of registered or naturalised included in that helpful little note 2? Of course not.

Just to test the sheer scope of my stupidity, I showed British application form C1 to one of my colleagues.

"Do you understand this?" I asked her.

"Sure," she said reading, "that makes sense. If you're born here and you're a Bermudian, then you're naturalised. I mean if you're Bermudian then you're natural, right?"

Er . . . no. Wrong. According to my father-in-law, if you are a born Bermudian then you are neither naturalised nor registered.

Part of the problem is that the form doesn't seem designed for Bermudians taking advantage of the new regulations. The application is mostly for people seeking a British passport through marriage or through genealogy.

For example, the form asks me if my father was born in or out of the UK. Answer: Out. Then it asks for his particulars. When he falls down as having British blood they want my grandfather's particulars. How is this relevant? He was born in Bermuda, just like my father.

I don't even understand why I have to fill out this form in the first place. I have a Bermuda passport. How is it that my passport isn't good enough, but this form is relevant with half the printing lost in the photocopier?

I should just be able to hand my passport over, and they hand me back the British equivalent. Why all this rooting about for British blood?