Wrong page was stamped

I CAME to Hong Kong on Monday to collect my new British passport from immigration and I returned to Macau on the midnight jetfoil.

Since the passport was brand new my Hong Kong ''EXIT'' stamp was the first to be put inside it.

I would have expected this to have been stamped on the first available page, which, in the case of the new European Community passports, is page 5.

Imagine my annoyance when, looking at my passport after going through Customs, I saw that the stamp had been put at the bottom of page 10.

This is not, of course, the first time the officers on duty have stamped the passport so stupidly.

One occasion was in April 1992, when the officer decided to stamp the passport on the very last page, despite there being some 40 empty pages in front of it.