Next month I plan to go to Washington D.C. for a fellowship event of the 21st Century Trust. But with the new visa rules to the US, I can’t simply rely on being white and English-speaking to get me through immigration without a scratch. Luckily, citizens of countries belonging to the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) won’t need a visa as long as they have a machine readable passport. My passport isn’t ‘machine readable’, so from 1st October I’ll need to either have a new passport or apply for visa.