25 clues just in case you didn’t know you’re in a recession

IT MADE headlines, but last week’s official permission for us to use the R word and describe Ireland as being in recession wasn’t really necessary, for some of us.

We’d already got the message. Each of us had come to terms with at least some of the 25 clues to knowing when you’re in a recession.

But let’s get them out of the closet, this Monday morning, so we’re all on the same (bad) page.

1. You know you’re in a recession when people yearn for Brian Cowen to do a State of the Nation address.

How this is going to improve things is a mystery, since the last one featured Charlie Haughey, wearing a Charvet shirt paid for by rich pals, telling the rest of us to tighten our belts.

2. You know you’re in a recession when charity shops are the new chic outlets.

3. You know you’re in a recession when you feel sorry for taxi drivers, who are now like that poor horse in the Orwell story that ends up working longer and longer hours until it pops its clogs.

The taxi drivers are starting at dawn and working until after dark to make the money they could have made in six hours just a few years back.

Taxi deregulation was like encouraging rabbits to breed just before everybody turned vegetarian.

4. You know you’re in a recession when the letter from the bank is the first envelope you open.

5. You know you’re in a recession when you consider selling off that gold bangle given to you by a boyfriend you never much liked, anyway.

6. You know you’re in a recession when phrases like “retail therapy” suddenly seem tacky, tawdry and evocative of a time when a) therapy was the solution to everything from a mild hangover to a significant trauma and b) we kidded ourselves that we were ironic, as opposed to greedy.

7. You know you’re in a recession when the cat arrives into the house, yelling in triumph with a dead mouse and you tell it to eat the bloody thing, does it not know times are tight?

8. You know you’re in a recession when we all get impatient with the opposition for claiming to have pointed out that this was where we were headed, long before it actually arrived. They did, of course.

And, yes, the Government ignored them. But you know something worse? The media and general public ignored them, too.

Wilfully and spitefully: we punished them with bad poll ratings for telling us the truth.

So reminding us that the Government was dumb as a tree not to pay attention to Richard Bruton and George Lee makes the rest of us smart in our tender parts, too.

9. You know you’re in a recession when your newspaper is so thin, it feels like it’s been on a crash diet and ad breaks on radio are so short, you can’t make a phone call during them, the way you used to.

You know you’re in a recession when you buy shampoo from a half-price barrel in the supermarket and feel virtuous about it until you get it home and discover it’s conditioner, which you never use.

11. You know you’re in a recession when you find yourself telling other people to buy GreenCones because they eat up your food waste, improve your garden and, best of all, reduce the number of bin tags you have to buy.

12. You know you’re in a recession when you climb on the little wall in order to step into the wheelie bin to scrunch the waste down so you can further reduce the number of bin tags you buy, and are grateful you don’t live in one of those local authority areas where they weigh your bin.

13. You know you’re in a recession when you hear sales of premium brands are down, and you congratulate yourself on never having bought Christian Louboutin shoes or Louis Vuitton luggage, even in the good times.

14. You know you’re in a recession when you hear twentysomethings explaining that they’re going to stay in that deadly boring job for another few months, not because it will look better to have a solid bit of experience on their CV, but because they mightn’t get another job if they abandoned the one they currently have.

15. You know you’re in a recession when part of you wants to clout Eamon Ryan for sending out a smart electricity meter to you, part of you knows you need to stop all the heating coming on everywhere at the same time when you can’t occupy all rooms simultaneously, part of you feels more environmentally responsible — and part of you feels mingy for seriously wanting to save a few hundred a year.

16. You know you’re in a recession when everybody’s calling on the Government to make spending cuts without countenancing for a moment that those spending cuts might affect THEM.

17. You know you’re in a recession when you save batteries that no longer have the energy to power up your radio, but might possibly, some day, come in handy for something less energy-demanding.

18. You know you’re in a recession when you hear your mother or grandmother’s voice coming out of your mouth as you demand to know, of your children or husband: “Were you born in a barn? D’you have any idea how much heat escapes through an open door?”

19. You know you’re in a recession when you postpone fixing the flat roof, because it really only leaks three times a year and there’s buckets for that.

20. You know you’re in a recession when you reduce your use of couriers, sending items via An Post instead — and then begin to worry how the poor couriers will manage.

21. You know you’re in a recession when you save small change in a jar to put through that machine in the convenience store that gives you a grocery voucher in return.

22. You know you’re in a recession when buying a Lottery ticket stops being — as the National Lottery’s charmer, Paula, says on radio — “fun” and an opportunity to “play” but the possible solution to all of your desperations.

23. You REALLY know you’re in a recession when you begin looking at planks of wood in skips and consider nicking them for the wood-burning stove.

24. And you know you’re headed for depression when you begin to think about planting turnips in the back garden. You hate turnips and so does the man in your life, but you figure they’re such robust boulder vegetables, even an amateur could produce them.

25. You know you’re in a recession and headed for depression when you’re afraid. When you’re very afraid.