The Londoner

By Sikander Hayat I needed to apply for a smart NICOP for my son and went to Pakistan Embassy with the required documents. You need to book an appointment before turning up at the embassy. The web address for booking the appointment is   http://www.phclondon.org/appointments/  . The address for London embassy is 34-36 Lowndes Square, London SW1X 9JN . The nearest tube station is Knightsbridge. I had an appointment at 1500 hours and reached there with the appointment confirmation printout. You need to have you the following docs with you if you are a British National You appointment printout Your original detailed birth certificate & photocopy British Passport & photocopy Pakistani passport of your parents and photocopy If your parents do not have the passport than their NICOP and photocopy There are six steps to the process : You meet first team which confirms that you actually have an appointment and check that you have t...

By Sikander Hayat 23rd of the June 2016 will always be remembered by the people of United Kingdom . People have spoken and they want out. United Kingdom is out of the EU and Pound is down to the value it has not seen in many decades. This is the most momentous and seismic event after 1945. What is going to happen is anyone's guess as most people are coming to grips with the new reality. The sheer weight of immigration forced British people to leave European Union . In the short to medium term, British economy will come under great stress from the uncertainty created by the Brexit. There is a danger that jobs will be moved from London to European Union centres and London may lose a lot of business to rival cities within the Union. It will take at least two years for the negotiations to conclude between UK and EU on terms of exit. David Cameron has resigned but will stay on till October when new PM will be selected who will trigger article 50. Article 50 st...

Famous qawali singer Amjad Sabri has been murdered in Karachi. At the moment motives of the murderers are unknown and it is not known who has committed this heinous act. Pakistan is a dangerous place for anyone but for people who are well known, it can be a hellhole. Son of Chief Justice Sindh High Court has been abducted couple of days with his future in deep uncertainty and now Amjad Sabri has been killed.  In a normal country one can think of reasons for such oppression but in Pakistan there are so many different actors at work that it is near impossible to find out the identity of the culprit or their reason for such barbarity. Amjad Sabri was a singer and it is hard to think what wrong he did to upset anyone. Most of his singing was about the praise of Allah and his prophet and still he was not good enough to be allowed to live. Was this a case of extortion related killing, religiously motivated or politics had something to do with it, is currently unknown.  H...

Watford is a small town north of London and one of the most expensive places to buy property outside London. Some of the areas are even more expensive than London like Nascot Woods, Cassiobury Park e.t.c.  The number one primary school according to Good School Guide rankings https://www.schoolguide.co.uk/primary-schools/Watford  is Nascot Wood primary school.  The number one secondary school in Watford is Watford Grammar School for Boys https://www.schoolguide.co.uk/secondary-schools/Watford . Watford is a small town but it has many independent coffee shops and small independent retailers which sell fresh vegetables, meat and fruit. Watford football club has been recently promoted to premier league and match days are very busy affairs as all car parks near the stadium are full to the brim and town centre becomes a host to home and away fans. Some of the retailers who sell asian groceries are Best Foods and Gill Butchers ( As the name suggests, Gill B...

By Sikander Hayat  Impact of Brexit on British Pakistanis is going to be huge. There are sizeable Pakistani communities living in United Kingdom , Norway , Spain , Ireland and other Western European countries . What does the future hold for the cohesion of these communities. Would Brexit stop them from interacting, living and working. I guess this point is true for anyone living in Britain and the rest of EU but now that the third/ fourth generation of Pakistanis are growing up, leaving now will be huge blow to their future prospects. It is not out of the question that UK will suffer an economic loss if it leaves EU. The most painful truth is that current debate in UK has moved away from economy to the toxic subject of immigration . Now immigration is at the front, right and centre of the Brexit debate and because of this toxic environment, MP Jo Cox was murdered by a right wing terrorist in the city of Leeds . That terrorist believed that Ms Cox was pro ...

By Sikander Hayat  We do not know what to say. We want to say a lot of things but it seems that we do not have the words to say them. Depression, tension we do not know what we are suffering from? Is it just life? Is this the  price that we pay as humans to live on this earth. To be sad, to be discontented. Happiness is elusive. Very few fleeting moments of happiness and joy and endless list of problems. What is right and what is wrong, we have no idea. There are days when you feel happy, you feel on the top of the world, you feel that everything is going according to the plan, you feel that you can not be defeated, you cannot be conquered and you cannot be in a bad situation ever again. Then there are other days when you feel nothing goes right, when you feel there is no point in living, when you feel the world is against you, when you feel whatever plans you make are destined to fail, when you feel no matter what you do things will not get better. This is existenc...

Home - More than 20 British Muslim families have been denied entry to the US, it has been claimed, amid mounting claims of religious discrimination by border officials. The allegation was made after a British father whose family holiday to Disneyland in the US was cancelled at the last minute by border officials spoke of their “devastation”. Fitness instructor Mohammad Tariq Mahmood was among 11 members of his family hoping to fly from Gatwick to Los Angeles last week, but said they were taken from the queue to board the plane by a border control officer. Read the full story here.