Guide to the Economic Downturn


PROC's Guide to the Economic Downturn
Alan Ger

Temperatures in Cork so far this week have struggled to stay in the high teens, the North Main Street patented "sidewards rain" has drenched us. The winds carried it up our noses, through our lungs and into our weakening souls.

We're wheezing, coughing, spluttering and sneezing and believe it or not it's the end of June - the Irish summer has arrived. Just in case our virtual-winter wasn't taking the edge off your summer plans the ERSI announced on Tuesday that we'll have our first recession since 1983. Like the pallets, tyres, mattresses and dusty old couches last Monday night - the Irish economy is a virtual bonfire.

If your bank balance is restricting your personal entertainment allowance, why not go out for a stroll? Its free*.

Becoming a Racist
In the absence of any mass religion or supernatural beliefs an economic downturn is usually a good time to decide to become a racist. There are a number of places you can find out how to become one including websites, local radio stations and certain pubs that show Scottish soccer on Saturday afternoons (just look for scum outside sucking in the nicotine). From a range of unbalanced individuals you can obtain various, albeit grossly illogical, sentences to roar at people.

If you're not used to mouthing bad language you're going to have to get used it and you may want to ease yourself into it gradually by watching some Roddy Doyle films or attending the visit of a Dublin team to Turners Cross.

Johnny Foreigner
With the government declaring that they did nothing wrong (we should get a classic Noel O'Flynn its-nothing-to-do-with-me sound byte now any day) and the banks all citing European interest rates as the cause you'll have to blame somebody for your declining bank balance so why not blame Johnny Foriegner? He's bound to have something to do with, right?

Normally becoming a racist will get you fired but in a few weeks you probably won't have a job anyway so that won't be too much of a problem.

However, we have to warn you that becoming a racist isn't easy. You will lose a lot of friends, you'll diminish your own credibility and will only be allowed into certain pubs on Mondays and Tuesdays where you can sit at the counter on your own and wonder why everyone else is bunched up at the other end.

Lost in Translation
To get started you'll need to call up your foreign friends, neighbours and work mates and invite them round to your gaf for a glass of water. Like telling your parents that you've converted to Buddhism you'll have to tell them that you've decided become a racist.

This may involve a few Lost in Translation moments where you have to clarify that you are becoming a racist and not a rapist, before your, now ex, semi-English speaking friends get the picture and decide to leave.

Only the lonely

Go Public
Like those good looking Scandanavian lads from the Church of Jesus Christ that hang around Wilton you're going to have to become a missionary - but your mission is to spread the bad news that Johnny Foreigner is wrecking everything.

One of the best ways to get yourself heard is to go on a local phone-in radio show where you'll be given as much time as you want to humiliate yourself in public.

Chuggers Come-upance
They've been jumping out from behind bins and frightening the shit out of us on Patrick Street for long enough. Those brightly anoraked annoyingly cheerful charity collectors are going to be on the other end of things now that the Irish economy is in freefall.

Instead of getting hassled, we will now be able to turn on them - hiding behind old ladies and jumping out in front of them to shake their hand with a fake smile that has been practiced a thousand times, demanding that they give us money. That'll shake 'em.

"Ha! You think that guy in Africa is poor? I've had to give up my Sky plus box and my SUV."

Health Cuts
While you twiddle your thumbs at home waiting for the economic downturn to do another handbrake spin and you've finished looking at all the flahs on the other pages of this magazine you can bide your time protesting against government cuts. If you thought the queues for A&E were long before, wait until this economic bad-boy kicks in.

Cork mechanics should be ashamed of themselves

Should you break a bone in your fist at the fountain on a Saturday night ("I was doing press-ups on me knuckles doctor, I swear") it might be mended by the time the unfortunate medical slaves at CUH have a chance to see you.

Even new born babies could be in their teens before gynaecologists sign off on their births. People in their late twenties should also consider putting their name down for a hip-replacement as soon as possible in order to have it ready for their mid sixties.

Hire-A-Picket
If you're too lazy to roar at Mary Harney or don't want to bother the lads at the bank who sold you a sneaky sub-prime loan, don't worry about finding something else to protest about.

Ball over to "Mr. Hire-A-Picket" and the Republican Sinn Fein lads at City Hall to get in on the latest raucous over some trivial issue.

For example, there might be some disabled lad being honoured for his contribution to his community by the Lord Mayor but the Sinn Fein boys will give you a placard condemning him because they've found out he was actually born in Portsmouth and owned a pair of socks with the Union Jack on them.

We really do hope you know how

(Seriously, did you ever see anything as embarrassing as the shower of upright rats protesting against Albert Reynolds and John Major being honoured by our Lord Mayor for their valuable contribution to peace in Norn Iron?)

Out of the Traps
Besides trying to get our lack lustre soccer team into the next World Cup, Giovanni Trappatoni also has to make it sufficiently successful to spark a second Celtic Tiger like Jack Charlton's troops in 1990.

Perhaps this time we could go for a more chilled-out economic model like a Celtic Turtle or Celtic Elephant though - both live well into their sixties so that'll give us a lifetime of stable economic bliss instead of the last ten years of financial pandemonium and the apparent slump we're now experiencing.

No pressure Traps but we're all expecting miracles for that wage you're on. By the end of the year his one million quid a year wage packet could buy up half of Rathcormac and Carrigtwohill such is the forecast negative equity.

Don't doubt the Corkonian influence on things though. The likes of Stephen Ireland could smash a few goals into Argentinean, German and Brazilian nets and ignite the country's smouldering financial prospects once again so sit tight and wrap your copy of Corklife around your naked body to fend off the cold until things pick up again.

Quite a diverse and wide ranging protest on South Mall

Emigration's Circle of Irony
If you have decided to become a racist as a result of the big slowdown then emigrating might cause you a few unexpected problems. You see, the problem with other countries is that they are full of these foreigners so unless you can find a way of colonising a small part of another EU country for Cork you could be snookered.

As it stands, America's door is bolted pretty tight, the UK is wobbling in and out of the economic hard-shoulder itself and after the No vote the French and Germans are not going to be too welcoming either. That means you could end up in Poland, Estonia or Latvia helping to pump up their economies on their minimum wage.

Don't subscribe to all the misery talk though - there's an upside to the impending economic ruin and mass emigration. Apparently the weather's far better out foreign.


* Cough and cold medicines required after a walk in torential rain are not free.

 
 
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