Giro day

Receiving the flimsy green butterfly of that giro has made a huge difference to my mood and perspective. This is proof that opening official correspondence in brown envelopes can be mood-elevating as well as a downer, and shouldn't necessarily be avoided at all costs.

It's not the giro amount (negligible) that causes relief, but being authenticated. Now a real person with a proven identity exists within the system and can access certain basic material provisions. When you have children to support, this is of unbelievable significance.

If anyone feels provoked to mither about welfare mothers, deadbeat dads, nanny state, your tax pound etc., I cut these dead by virtue of my thoroughly middle-class, drone-like 20 years of employment until this point. I paid into the pot, and now I can drink even if it's piss.

Not that I don't also believe that 'they owe us a living', because as it happens I do. That wee giro gives me a bit of breathing space to look past immediate pressing needs, and contemplate permutations.