"Today, Matthew, I am going to be... Jim Callaghan"

Today, Matthew, I am going to be Jim Callaghan...

... when he went to the IMF, that is. Or was it Denis Healey? Did they both go?

I have had to go to the IMF of the Department of Social Security, the Crisis Loan Department. All for about £30. I don't even know what the amount will be at the moment, but the bloke on the helpline - who could hardly be less helpful - said come in at 1pm. It is now 12.19pm.

How must Sonny Jim - that amiable, famously non-university, ex wages clerk Prime Minister from Portsmouth - have felt when the British government was so broke in 1976 that it went cap-in-hand to the International Monetary Fund for a handout? What a humiliation for Britain, ravaged by stagflation. I know the feeling.

I applied for Jobseeker's Allowance (they call it JSA though spell the "JS" as just one word - Jobseeker - what sense is there in that?) 3 weeks and 1 day ago, yet have received nothing. My final week's wages from the last job (£211.91) was paid 3 weeks ago on Friday yet ran out last week. That leaves £6.31 in the bank for the past few days and no prospect anytime soon of any money. What a state to land up in.

The impatient bloke on the Crisis Loan hotline (at Clarendon House, Western Way, Exeter) was constantly irritated by any comment at all from me. Perhaps he's used to hoodlums or hoodies trying it on. He sounded about 50, a veteran of the 70s, funnily enough, just like Callaghan. Seen it all at the DSS. From when it was called DHSS to its modern 3 letter acronym. Everything at the SS is a 3 letter acronym.

I assumed that the 'loan' would be whatever JSA entitlement that I had built up and not been paid - currently over 3 weeks - yet he was at pains to say that it is an actual loan that you pay back, not linked to any social security entitlement. The idiot was the most annoyed person I've ever spoken to, professionally.

I fucking hate Clarendon House. By the Paris Street roundabout, with its new 'gateway' building - supposedly a new cinema in the making - which the council hailed yet turns out to be yet another big car park, this time with a few flats on top. Awful. Just like the new Princesshay.

Now I am in Exeter Central Library, about to embark on the 9 minute walk to Clarendon House for my Crisis Loan.