‘Yeah. Givvus two to make up for the hole.’

Half nine on the dot and the queue slowly begins to shuffle forward as the doors are opened. More waiting, then as soon as we get inside, Sharon tells me I need to queue up again at hatch fifteen. New claims. So yet more queuing as we slowly inch our way forwards. At the very top of the queue there’s a woman stridently saying at the top of her voice, ‘But you can’t do that to me! I know my entitlements!’ Then, at the hatch right beside her, there’s a little kid of about four scribbling on the walls in crayon while his dad signs on.

‘Could you kindly ask your child to refrain from drawing on my office wall?’ asks the welfare officer, a youngish guy with roundey glasses that kind of give him a look of Harry Potter.

‘What do you mean, youroffice wall?’ he retorts. ‘This is government property and the government work for me, so when you think about it, this is really myoffice, isn’t it?’

Sniggers from everyone in the queue behind. And still more sniggers from Sharon when I naively ask whether or not I’ll get any actual cash today.

‘No, eejit. All you’re here for now is to make an appointment to come back to see the welfare officer. Then you come back in a few weeks and they’ll means test you.’

‘You mean we’ve queued for this long just to get an appointment? Couldn’t I have just…I dunno…rung up instead?’

‘Where exactly do you think you are, Cinderella Rockefeller? The hairdressers? The beauty salon?’ she almost guffaws into my face.

‘So when do I get to see any money is what I really want to know.’

‘Depends. Your claim will be backdated to today but if they feel sorry for you, then they might give you an emergency payout.’

‘So…is there any chance they might give me some of that emergency cash today?’

‘Are you joking?’ she nearly guffaws into my face. ‘You have to go to the local health centre to apply for it from the HSE. Oh yeah, and you have to be sure to tell them you’re actively seeking employment or else you won’t get a bean. And you have to say it like you mean it. You’ve no idea what a shower of suspicious bastards they can be.’

‘But how am I supposed to actively seek employment when no TV show for miles will touch me with a bargepole? Even my agent says there’s nothing for me at all until…well…until what happened blows over. Can’t I just explain to them that I’m like…a unique case?’

‘Well excuse me, your majesty. For feck’s sake, Jessie, just look around you. Everyone here is a “unique case”. Now build a bridge and get over yourself. And would you ever take off the sunglasses? Only Goodfellas wear sunglasses indoors.’

‘The point I’m trying to make,’ I argue back at her, reluctantly taking off the glasses and shoving them into my bag, ‘is I’m an un-hireable TV presenter. Which has to make me a special case.’

‘Listen to you, Little Miss Oh Don’t You Know Who I Am. Everyone here is in the exact same boat as you, except none of them got fired for being greedy and grabbing free cars in front of half the country. Now shut up and sign on.’

It’s at this point that I’m about to give up, run outside and open a vein, but lo and behold, miracle of miracles, my turn finally comes. The dole woman is brisk and business-like as she hands me out a UB90 form to fill out, completely uninterested in who I am or what my ‘special’ circumstances are. When she sees the name on my passport, it’s the first time she actually makes eye contact with me, with a tiny flicker of interest in her eyes.

‘You’re Jessie Woods? Oh yes, well, under question fourteen of the Jobseeker’s Benefit Form, where it asks why your previous employment ended, just put that your employment was suddenly terminated.’

Living in total isolation from the world at large as I am now, I’m inclined to forget that the dogs on the streets know all my business. Anyway, expertly groomed by Sharon, I must have answered all her questions right because after less than five minutes she’s going, ‘Next!’

And that’s when it happens.

I turn around and head over to where Sharon’s grabbed a free seat for herself, delighted to be done and dusted, and with a ‘can we go now?’ expression etched onto my face. But there’s two women standing right beside her, one with a buggy and one with a stroller, with about three kids each hanging out of them.

‘It isher!’ one of them says, staring at me like I’m some kind of exhibit in a wax museum. She has tattoos of all her kids’ names on her forearm written so large that even from a few paces away, I can still read them clearly: Kylie, Britney and Rihanna.

‘No, it’s not,’ says her pal, who looks like she’s dipped her head in waaaay too much peroxide.

‘It definitelyis! Sure she got fired from her TV show, didn’t she? Makes sense that she’d be here to sign on.’

‘Jessie Woods is miles better looking than her,’ says Peroxide Head. ‘That one looks like death warmed up.’

Next thing, one of the kids is over to me. ‘Givvus your autograph, will you?’

‘Emmm…’ I stammer. ‘Well, actually, if you don’t mind, you see, I’m in a bit of a rush…’

‘If she takes off the baseball cap, then we’d be able to get a decent look at her. Tell her to take it off!’ says Tattoo Woman bossily.

‘Ehh, excuse me? Take off that baseball cap there for us, will you love? We can’t see your face.’

Just get us out of here, I semaphore furiously over to Sharon, who seems to take the hint and slowly peels her bum off the seat to leave. But now it’s like a ripple has spread through the entire welfare office and all I can hear is, ‘Jessie Woods? From the TV show? For real?’

Next thing there’s people whipping out mobile phones and taking photos. One guy is even videoing me on his iPhone.

‘Maybe she’s doing this for one of her dares!’ some bright spark at the back of the packed room calls out, as I battle my way through the crowd to the door. I’ve lost Sharon and now I can’t even see her.

‘Feck, does that mean there’s hidden TV cameras here?’ another guy with white emulsion paint streaks in his hair mutters to his pal as I inch my way past them. ‘I don’t want to end up as an extra on the telly. I’m not even supposed to be here. I’m working.’

‘She can’t be doing it for her TV show!’ yells a woman’s voice from the very back of the queue. ‘She got fired and the show was taken off the air. And now there’s nothing to watch on a Saturday evening except for bleeding Ant and Dec. I hatethat pair of gobshites.’

Christ alive, it’s a nightmare. By now I’m a public spectacle and what’s worse is I’m still a good ten feet from the bloody door. There’s people grabbing at me and in the mêlée I lose my baseball cap but I just keep battling my way through the throng thinking getmeoutofheregetmeoutofheregetmeoutofhere.

I’m not joking; at one point a tall girl who looks a bit like a model actually thrusts a CV into my hand. ‘I always wanted to work in TV,’ she almost shrieks at me, ‘so if you wouldn’t mind passing that on to your agent or, you know, any producers you might still be on speaking terms with…’

Then some joker sitting with the paper on his knee pipes up at the top of his voice, ‘What’s the difference between Jessie Woods and a pigeon? At least a pigeon can still make a deposit on a Mercedes, waa-haaa!’ He cracks up at his own gag and so do half the dole office and I swear I’m thisclose to bawling when out of nowhere, a rough hand grabs me, grips me tight and strongarms me towards the door, almost lifting me as we barge our way out. I look up gratefully to this knight in shining armour…and it’s none other than Sharon.

‘Will you all relax for feck’s sake?’ she yells at the crowd at the top of her voice. ‘She’s only a look-a-like! Used to make a fortune on the side doing twenty-firsts and thirtieths, but now God love her, she can’t get a gig to save her life on account of what happened to the real Jessie Woods!’