A visit to the bank this a.m. confirmed what my psychic powers had been flashing for several days – I’m completely broke.

It’s nothing new – at least for me. Presumably there are guys who never ever find themselves in this state of penury, but I console myself with the macho thought that they’re a bunch of old women in disguise who are never in debt because they don’t have the chutzpah to take a risk.

This is bollocks as I well know, but my occasional deliberate delusion ‘ain’t no sin’ in my book.

I’ve always found it really, really tough to ask a Friend to sub me, even though he knows he’ll get it back. I see it as a reflection that I’m less of a guy, somehow. Once you ‘let go of mummy’s hand’, as it’s phrased in the WMD Guide, you automatically acknowledge the Aloneness inherent in being a guy, or at least one with Balls.

I suppose that’s why I’m so hostile to the general idea of Benefits. It’s the dependency which they carry with them in their under-belly. They’re like a drug. You’re tempted to try the heroin ‘just once’ and before you realise it you’re dependant on the fucking stuff. Your balls are transformed from being a source of Courage, Action and Risk to a pair of not-so-pretty decorations.

So…how to survive the rest of this week……..

I’ll have money in a few days time. I have a job which pays me a pittance but I don’t let this worry me as I enjoy my work. The organisation is a Charity which concerns itself with the welfare of teenagers. The changes to their lives which we bring about you can actually witness. The guys who work for the Charity really Care.

I think ‘Caring’ is a terrific word. I use

it a lot. It’s very useful these days when the word ‘Love’ is tricky even to actually say for some guys; they think it makes them sound like they’re a pussy.

There’s also the big, big problem with ‘Love’ because when you say ‘Love’ the other guys hear ‘Sex’. It’s distressing the way these words have become so distorted that for many guys they mean the same thing. ‘I love you’ means ‘I wanna shag you’. As a result, for me, I’m very into using Caring.

It’s actually a word that became fixed in my mind when I was 14-years old. I suddenly contracted appendicitis and was rushed

into Halifax infirmary where they ripped it out. (It was a tough little fucker….only joking.)

For the first 24 hours after the operation they wouldn’t give me any solid food, just orange juice through a straw.

Then on the second evening a nurse brought me some carrot soup.

She also brought me a couple of pillows so that I could sit up slightly otherwise, she said, I might tear the stitches eating. So, in this slightly odd position, she spoon fed me the soup.

As I was lying there it was as if a bell rang in my head. ‘I’m being Cared for’, I realised; ‘this is what’s known as Caring’. I’ve never forgotten it, a truly Happy Day.

But now for today, and how to magic up some moulah until pay day……