Welcome back to The Breakdown with me, NLW.

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What's going on, guys? It is Sunday, December 6th, and that means it's time for Long

Reads Sunday. And I have never had as many requests for a specific piece as I have for this

one. It could only be the piece in Bloomberg by Neil Ferguson. Bitcoin

is winning the COVID-19 monetary revolution. So instead of giving you some big long intro,

let's just dive in. In Shuggy Bain, Douglas Stewart's award-winning and harrowing depiction of

alcoholism, sectarianism, and deprivation

in post-industrial Scotland, money is always scarce and often dirty. Deserted by her second

husband and unable to hold down a job, Shuggy's mother, Agnes, relies on her twice-a-week benefit

to feed her children, or her booze habit. As the latter nearly always wins, she and Shuggy are

regularly reduced to

desperate expedience to fend off starvation, extracting coins from electricity and television meters,

pawning their few valuable possessions, and ultimately selling their bodies for brutal sexual

favors. Stuart vividly captures the miseries of a Glasgow of greasy coins and filthy banknotes.

After one of many wretched copulations

in the back of a taxi, one of Agnes' lovers inadvertently showers her with coins from his pocket.

Shogi's father briefly reappears at one point handing his son two 20-pence pieces from his

taxis change dispenser by way of a gift, grudgingly adding four fifty pence pieces when the boy

looks nonplussed. Don't ask for mar.

...