Where's my passport?

I heard a great story from a colleague yesterday that truly exemplifies the mess at the Immigration department of the Home Office. On Tuesday, I - along with some colleagues - won a trip to Lisbon this weekend for the Rock in Rio festival. One of those colleagues is an aussie who is in the process of gaining a change to her immigration status. I'll be honest I'm not sure of all the details but what I do know is that as part of it her passport is with the Immigration Directorate. Obviously she needs the passport to go to Lisbon so she contacted them and explained the situation. She was told, "it will take 11 days to locate your passport". Locate?!