Virtue Signaling.

 Went to see Scary Women at the Black Box yesterday. Shit, I thought, it's four quid in and I have no cash on me. I haven't used physical money for two years, but the Belfast Film Festival is the sort of operation that uses a confused volunteer and a cash box, and seemed unlikely to be able to process contactless. So, I thought I'd get a tenner out, and I could give the change to the homeless.

 

Hill Street, where the Black Box is located, is full of homeless people, sitting in doorways as the hen parties and farmers-up-in-the-smoke-on-the-pull traipse past them. I like giving money to homeless people. Rather them than snow leopards or a donkey sanctuary, sorry. How do I know the snow leopards won't spend it on drugs as well? 

So I went to the only bank in the Cathedral Quarter that has a cash machine that doesn't charge you two pounds to take out your own money: the post office. I'd just used my cash card - topping up my travel card - so I was surprised when I placed the card into the Post Office's cash machine and it immediately spat it out with the following stark warning on the screen: "Your Card Appears To Be Faulty - Contact Your Bank Immediately."

This was not a message I'd ever seen from a telling machine, and my lower spine turned to ice. I was going to have to test the bank's assertion. I ran round the corner and paid two pounds for a tenner of my own money. The card was fine. The Post Office were pricks, and I'd squandered a couple of quid to find that out. 

I turned up at the Black Box and was blandly waved in - the volunteer hadn't even opened the cash box yet. So I had spent two quid to get a tenner I didn't need. Excellent. Inside the venue all the staff remembered me from the week before, because I'd turned up for the show a week early on the advice of one of the contributors, and it was hilarious. 

Apparently. 

The conversation was excellent and I pushed off for Ballhackamore and my dinner engagement just as it was darkening. I gave the tenner to the first homeless person I saw. They were quite pleased. 

And on the way back I chased all the money lenders from the temple...

I tell you solemnly.