My wife called the British Embassy last week asking if it were possible for them to revalidate her spouse visa. This is due to the fact that I want to travel with her to the UK come December, however I could be working in China until late December and her visa was only valid until 16th of December. The Embassy said they would get back to her with a answer, four days later they asked her to go to the Embassy and bring her passport, three hours or so later she has a new spouse visa which will be valid until March 2012, wonderful ! Another thing is, since the new ambassador replaced the previous chap, the consular section have been available for longer hours, where as before they only worked half days, long may the improvements to their service continue!