I’m not sure what the “plus” meant in the title of the Jobcentre Plus. Perhaps it was the two addicts asleep in the doorway when I arrived at 9 a.m. last Thursday morning. They would be the added value in my whole JobCentre experience; two weather-savaged men listing at ten degrees from the vertical like they were in a state of synchronised sedation or syncopated somnolism.
How I found myself in such a grim part of St Helens (imagine Wigan but less affluent) at 9 a.m. is a long story but it probably began a month earlier when my sister tried to kill me in the A&E department of the local hospital. One moment she was sitting in a wheelchair having experienced confusion and faintness. The next she turned her head like she was Linda Blair possessed in The Exorcist. She looked deep into my eyes and told me I was evil. Not only that: we were both in Hell, I was a serial killer, and she was very sorry but she had to protect herself.
