Crisis loan

The scant pennies you need to feed the mice living in your flat when the giro fails to arrive and another week of starvation looms. To secure a crisis loan one must first contact the crisis loans department of the centralised social security services where one is put on hold for forty minute intervals interspersed with short bursts of nasty questions in which one is made to feel like the scum of the earth. After two and a half hours (my record) one is then blasted with more insults before being offered £20 for the next two weeks. Then follows an interminable wait at the job centre amongst a sea of human flotsam who are now your nearest living brethren. After a standard wait which sees the job centre close and most the staff leave you are summoned to the back room to be given your crisis loan cheque which you cannot now cash until the following day as the post office has shut.