Aside from your pension-relared problems, you should never have allowed yourself to get in the situation of being skint with more than two weeks to go till your next payday!

Thanks all the same for your advice, which I won't ever have to take, btw, as cash is no problem, and NEVER will be one! You see, the bit about being almost out of cash was a lie, as was my payday of the 15th, which was actually the 10th of the month. I had e-mailed those fabrications to a pensions administrator who had come across as insincere on the phone earlier. I wanted to see what his reaction would be. Lack of any response confirmed my earlier impression. I am sure that he's the principal bungler who's mishandled my case. All will be revealed later, stay tuned!