Auntie May in mourning on Black Thursday

NO, seriously, don’t panic – there’s enough cash stuffed under the bed to keep things going until April – we won’t have to start shutting down the hospitals and Garda stations until then at the earliest.

Thank God for Auntie May – otherwise known as the NTMA, the National Treasury Management Agency – she was the only one to stay off the champers during the bubble boom and put a few billion quid away for that day when she knew the country would wake up halfway between drunk and hungover.

And here it is. We’re all in the gutter now – well, we soon will be after the looming Rocky Horror Budget Show anyway – and poor old Auntie May just stands there, quietly weeping as she looks down at the two Brians floundering around in the mire as they keep denying the fall from economic grace to being caked in economic effluence was anything to do with them.

Auntie May had wanted to go back to the markets next month to try and sell off the few Government bonds she had left to raise some cash for the kiddies and the old people, but the Brians took the last wodge of cash she gave them and stuffed it into Anglo again.

The Brians said it was only a few billion quid and we’d get it all back – and hey, probably make a few bob on the deal – but €34.3bn worth of wasted taxpayers money later, things didn’t quite turn out like that. So, Auntie’s too embarrassed to show her face at the markets as planned, for fear the brokers will laugh her out of the trading room.

Of course, the Brians aren’t telling anyone that’s the real reason. No, they’ve cancelled the next two bond sales because everything is now going so well you see, not because they’ve made this most monumental cock-up.

It seems the Brians believe we will swallow anything. But then, once you start telling fibs the Devil does tend to take over your tongue: ‘No, it’s fine. it’s nothing to do with the Galway Tent or the Golden Circle, Anglo’s really cool – they’re good for it – it won’t cost the taxpayer a penny. Well, maybe €2.5bn, OK so, possibly €8bn – tops – but that’s it, honest. Yeah, perhaps a teensy, weensy €12bn – but, really we’re drawing the line there. All right, all right – €24bn! But we’re positive this time, that’s it – you gotta believe us! Cards on the table – no, we’re really telling the truth this time – €34.3bn – straight up! Trust us – when have we ever lied to you?’

Labour’s Joan Burton – whose voice can go from mute to megaphone in 0.2 seconds – dubbed it “Black Thursday, a day of infamy”. And as Brian Lenihan shuffled onto the press conference podium he certainly had the look of a man who was thinking: “Infamy! Infamy! They’ve all got in infamy!”

Mr Lenihan seemed quite relieved when he announced the country had reached “rock bottom” – but you got the feeling that even though he claimed “the nightmare is over” – on the past performance of his predictions, we probably still have quite a way to fall yet. Maybe in a few years from now we’ll look back on this moment and smile: “D’you remember the good old days? Yeah, we were just at rock bottom then – before things got really bad....”

Mr Lenihan has the same “no apology, no regret, no real hope” message of the other Brian, but while the Taoiseach delivers it with disinterested, grumpy, vague menace, Mr Lenihan deploys all the smoothness he would while discussing the delights of the Law Library’s range of fine sherry, and so we don’t seem to blame him so much for the economic disaster unravelling around him.

As when he told the Dáil how he took part in an EU finance ministers’ summit: “I participated by telephonic communication,” he announced, deliciously.

Now, if only he could turn around an economy as easily as he can turn a phrase, then poor old Auntie May wouldn’t be left sobbing into her junk bonds – and the rest of us wouldn’t be facing penury.