The Waiting Game

I started writing this column almost a year ago, when the country was in elevated throes of recession mania. It may have only been a matter of months, a year even, but the gleam of novelty on the word 'recessionista' has now faded to a rusty patina that would cast worried glances on the faces of even the most impassive Cash 4 Gold franchise owners. The word 'recession' has gone the way of your unwanted, broken gold.


It needs to be conveniently melted down - out of sight, out of mind (which is fine if it concerns said gold, but not so fine if you're the captain of The Titanic steering towards an inconspicuous-looking lump of ice).


We're being told from all angles that the recession is over. The main statistic to support this supposed fact is the marked slowdown of job losses. Less people are losing their jobs; therefore the country is in a state of recovery. QED? I think not.

Even the least observant child can tell you that the following is a load of old copswallop: The ball is red. A fire engine is red. Therefore a ball is also a fire engine. Right? Wrong. Can we see what's wrong with this chain of thought?

Some people have said it, but it bears saying again - does anyone think that the reason that there are less job losses is because there are no more jobs to lose? Just because the economy has stopped shrinking doesn't mean that it is automatically growing again, nor does it mean that it will grow to the extent that it did during the boom years.

Here's a personal anecdote. Recently I sent out thirty-five CVs to different places over the city. So far I haven't heard a word from anyone with the exception of one lonely rejection text (a text! I ask you...). Tomorrow will be my third day in a row at the dole office handing in sundry forms and rattling at hatch windows like Bubbles reunited with LaToya Jackson.

Today I was directed to an interview room. I was stopped from going in by an angry Slovakian woman. "What do you think you're doing?", she said. "I've been waiting here for two hours!" The office had only been open for an hour and a half at this point, but her face was like Popeye's the split second after a nice can of spinach, so I kept mute and let her go ahead.
I've been waiting for nearly a year. I suppose I can wait a bit longer.

Banana-rama-saga

Last Thursday, an initiative was brought to pass in the form of a decree. On the 17th of June 2010, the people of Cork were politely asked by the mayor not to use that word which starts with an r and rhymes with secession. This was ostensibly a move that would 'help drive Cork out of recession and into recovery'. Mercifully, I didn't actually use the word 'recession' in my column on that day. Instead I wrote about people who blissfully ignore the recession and carry on spending whether or not they have the resources. Funny that.

In the spirit of belated inclusion I will instead replace the word 'recession' with 'banana' for the rest of this column and provide a rebuttal to this decree as only a bananaista can.

The banana exists. You cannot ignore the banana. The banana is part of an economic system dependent as much on a bust as it is on a boom. We only have to weather the banana storm that is hailing upon us as best we can, despite the general feeling that we are all on a slow banana boat ride to nowhere.

Nor can we peel back the layers of the banana with an overly-optimistic word like 'pre-boom', which is a notion verging on the tragicomic. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the sense of optimism that this generates and the heartfelt effort by the good people of Cork to wholeheartedly attempt to 'lift (them)selves out of the doom and gloom' - to spend one day out of the shadow on the banana. Personally if I'm feeling gloomy I prefer a brisk walk with some podcasts and a nice, refreshing drink when I get back in, but each to their own.

Here's my point; we can ignore the banana just fine, but what would the response be if we decided not to use the word 'HIV' or 'rape' or 'Nazi' and dress every evil sounding word as something more palatable? I would imagine that there would be outrage on many camps and a distinct feeling of diminishment of people who have been adversely affected by these words. They sound that way and carry that resonance for a reason. We can't just pretend that something doesn't exist or that if it sounds better, that it somehow doesn't make an impact. You have to call a spade a spade. Lest we forget; a banana by any other name would taste as sweet.

Mustard syndrome

My parents are not rich by any stretch of the imagination, but they are of a generation that has carved out a very comfortable life for themselves through a lot of hard graft and a little bit of luck. Like many people of that generation, they have found to a certain extent that the serendipitous circumstances that helped buoy their earning power (that's the construction industry then) have also mutated into the reason why the family belts have been summarily tightened.
A friend of mine told me the following anecdote. His mother had just bought a designer handbag on the reasoning that everyone deserves a treat once in a while - nothing wrong with that... if you can afford it. Said friend went grocery shopping with his mother and tried to put some garlic in the trolley. "We already have garlic." she said, referring to a months-old bulb mouldering away in the fridge. "We have a very limited budget". She then stuffed some quails eggs and Dom Perignon into her basket and proceeded merrily on her way, cackling and clacking her heels on supermarket linoleum.

That last part didn't happen. I'm exaggerating. It was actually Parma ham and elderflower cordial.

As we grow up and out of a global financial situation and our core beliefs are shaken by the very people that we put our trust in, is it not reasonable to question our parents and their financial habits? After all, the Church has scarred us, bankers and the government have stripped us of all semblance of trust; why not look to our parents to totally dissolve any faith we might have left in the ability for a human to live a balanced life?

My friend's mother is merely symptomatic of the older generation of spenders that are obsessed with the trimmings. They spend money on all the little things they couldn't afford before they became affluent and ignore all the important basic needs.

There are people (of all ages, I might add) with racks and racks of designer dresses hanging on hooks because the money spent buying a wardrobe might be better dispersed on a pair of Choos.

I call it mustard syndrome. You know you have it when you arrive home one day and find that all you have in the fridge is fancy syrup, continental cured meats, expensive mustard and one solitary, greenish garlic bulb softening at the very back.

Turn 'what if' into 'so what'

Social welfare is often used as a mode of delaying reality, especially for the hordes of young people who still find themselves jobless or relying on increasingly tenuous sources of income. When you spend all your time in college, on close to no money and an excess of daytime tv to watch, going on the dole is simply another way of extending the college experience without actually having to go to college.
This might work for a short time (one of my friends has been signing on for almost three years; a fact he often announces with bizarre pride) but eventually real life will come-a-knocking and the realisation will dawn that your life is no longer dependent on the largest volume of naggins and noodles for the lowest price.
To quote John Lennon, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans". My plans were to spend the summer tootling along as usual in my house, selling some of my clothes on eBay and hopping on a weekend jaunt to Galway with the proceeds before the clouds went from June greige to September's leaden clumps. So, no-one was more surprised than me when I opened my big fat mouth and asked the other half if he fancied moving in together.
Now, after much humming and hawing, we are both poised on the precipice of doing the most grown up thing I've been involved with since managing to tie my shoelaces independently of my mother's help. It is terrifying.
The mild sense of foreboding that clouds what should be an exciting time has nothing to do with our relationship or how much money we have (or don't have, as the case may be). Our chosen abode is eerily perfect and almost impossibly affordable. The problem is not us. The problem lies with the endless parade of 'what ifs' that stream through our minds. What if the money dries up? What if we lose our jobs? What happens if our savings suddenly poof into nothingness at some unseen genie's bidding?
As a generation, we're only just getting used to having the fiscal rug pulled out from under us at no notice, so niggling doubts are suddenly transformed into looming possibilities.
We've gone from being cautious to shrieking at our own shadows.
My advice? Turn your 'What if' into 'So what?' You'll sleep easier at night. You'll display the blithe disregard and head-in-the-sand financial mentality that means that you have finally grown up, looked reality in the face... and decided that you didn't like it.

Staycation Summer

The summer of the staycation has finally arrived. At the time of writing, the sun is shining, the ash cloud is still proving troublesome and rumblings abroad (of the political and food poisoning variety) makes a foreign holiday a more stressful prospect than it usually is. It's a good idea, this year, to forgo the passport trauma and take your summer sojourn at home. Here are a few advantages to playing house, some of which you may not have thought of.


1. No World Cup awkwardness. Sorry World Cup Widows, I don't have a solution for you. However a staycation means that you will be relieved of the inter-country tensions that are usually a product of several nationalities packed into one place. I vividly remember the 2002 World Cup final of Germany v Brazil, which I watched in a packed campsite in Italy. Every single Dutch person turned up to the match in Brazil gear and gave the death stare to the Germans, who did a lot of awkward shuffling and floor staring. Unfortunately, the atmosphere was anything but carnivalesque and when the final whistle blew, the camp bar descended into a slanging match and halfhearted scuffles not normally seen out of an episode of Eastenders.

2. Green smugness. Calculate how many trees died because your sister decided to backpack in Korea and casually drop it into every conversation. While you're at it, decry her holiday photos as a waste of paper and a mode of releasing harmful chemicals into the air. That'll teach her for going on holidays.

3. No language barrier. No waving your arms around in exaggerated motions trying to mine 'a baguette, please'. No speaking English in a foreign accent or at a volume high enough to blow a speaker in an Ibiza nightclub in a futile effort to make yourself understood. No looking like a culturally insensitive idiot because you didn't absorb anything from your phrasebook. Think about that.

4. More efficient money spending. Every year without fail, Irish women (including myself) storm Penneys and drop a hundred euros on a summer wardrobe of shorts, bikinis and tees totally unsuitable for an Irish climate, wear them on holidays, then never wear them again. Not only does a staycation mean that you'll be saving money on clothes, but put the cost of flights on top of your accommodation budget and presto, you've magically upgraded from a Mallorcan high-rise to a nice five-star hotel in Killarney or Connemara with enough change left over for a nice pony ride and a 99 on the beach. Happy Staycationing!

Mean Testing

I marvel at government means testing, I really do. Granted, vital statistics such as marital status, number of dependents and amount of debt are taken into account, as they should be. The means test also takes into account all the material gains accrued and emotional ties bonded in your lifetime. It is simultaneously a snapshot of your childhood, your education and your physical wellbeing. It is a governmental biography written in Big Brother code.

It is also, if this is humanly possible, a more demoralising version of a Cosmopolitan quiz, except instead of jaunty titles like 'What's your boudoir IQ?' or 'How dissatisfying is your career right now?' the quiz is 'Just how much are you worth anyway? Not much I bet - you are on the dole, after all, you big loser.'

My score on the multiple choice quiz that is means testing is woefully low. I have no dependents and my only housemate is a Polish man whose name I can barely pronounce. I own no art, nor did I make any savvy investments in the iPad or Chinese based expansion into Africa before the economic slump. Thankfully there is a cash bonus and it is directly proportionate to how badly you do on the test, and thus how depressing your life is on paper - see it as a monetary pat on the back and a reassuring "You'll do better next time, now go get 'em Champ! Maybe next time you'll think about buying some bonds, eh?"

Our lives can easily look insignificant when squeezed rigidly into boxes on a few sheets of paper. Before we get bogged down in the mire of how much we lost or never even had to lose, it is worth remembering that the means test is only an indicator of the present and not of the future. No-one knows what lurks around the corner, at any age. Nelson Mandela was arrested for treason and designated a terrorist in 1956, when he was thirty two. In 1994 he became the president of South Africa and an international symbol of peaceful racial unification. What a difference a few years (and a long stint on Robben Island) makes.

We won't all be lucky enough to become spiritual figureheads, but the message to my fellow social welfare recipients is clear. Don't despair, keep your chin up. There'll always be a tomorrow, and tomorrow is an equal opportunities employer.

Scrooge Among Us

When I was a kid the notion of the crooked businessperson was as alien to me as a jolly teaparty on the ceiling with ET and Alf. My nearest approximation would have been something close to Ebenezer Scrooge with scoliosis, which would drive me into screaming paroxysms every time I saw an old -an hobbling around with a hunch and a knobbly walking stick. In the mid nineties, when the country was emerging out of a slump into a boom, my reactions were seen as irrational.

Now, I think a Nostradamus award would be in order (if such a thing exists). Maybe my five-year-old self knew what was coming. Unfortunately, I was ignorant to the fact that the new breed of crooked businesspeople don't carry their crookedness in their spine, but rather safely concealed in skinny Dior suits, flaccid handshakes and oddly glassy, impersonal grins. The businessperson is usually accompanied by the Lesser Spotted Accountant, who can be distinguished by his or her capacity to sweat profusely and worry lines on the forehead that resemble an windstruck beach at sunset. Being the small fry that I am, it would be easy to assume that I wouldn't be personally affected by such people. Wrong.

In point of fact, everyone is directly affected. The common consensus is, even if you have little or no grasp on current affairs, that the bad guys win and the little people have to pick up the pieces. Why not have a large business? If you make yourself indispensible, then you will never go bust - the banks will bail you out (bearing in mind that this is speculation and not solid fact).

This kind of devil-may-care nonchalant 'tude looked good on James Dean, but it's beyond frightening to see it transplanted on people who really are old enough to know better. Just because you can play with fire it doesn't mean that you can play with other people's pension plans. The breadth of advantage taken over the little people who are virtually powerless to do anything, the ease with which some people can refuse to pay creditors with no prior warning and the sense of powerlessness that is pervading the national viewpoint is positively Dickensian. Throw in a plucky orphan and consumption and we could conceivably be looking at a 21st century version of Great Expectations. In retrospect, perhaps the childish nightmare of Ebenezer Scrooge wasn't so far off the mark.

Side Hustles

Since it's brief mention last week, I've been on the receiving end of a few tacit enquiries about the nature of the side hustle, mostly texts from friends and concerned members of my family wondering if I've lost my marbles. For those conclusion-jumping enquirers and my mother's peace of mind, no, calling it a hustle doesn't mean it has to be illegal, nor does it mean that I am planning to go on the game.

In a nutshell, the side hustle is what you do to bring in money when the fiscal glue that holds everything together starts to look less like Superglue and more like that vaguely tacky substance on the back of a Post It Note. The side hustle, while sounding faintly exciting, is not like The Sting. There will be no Robert Redford spouting encouraging, pithy epithets while you go on your merry way towards bamboozling a crooked businessman with a gambling problem - although there really should be a government bureau for bamboozling famous, crooked businessmen - just a thought. Nor is the side hustle boring. It's not your average part-time job. As a loose rule, the side hustle must be slightly entrepreneurial and an expansion on a hobby or interest. You like baking? Sell cakes to friends. Cordon Bleu in your spare time? Why not set up a guerrilla restaurant in your own home once a month? If you like music, then maybe setting up and promoting a club night or gig is for you.

If you have too many items of clothing in your wardrobe... you get the picture. With Facebook and Twitter, PR via word of mouth is a zero cost way to tout your wares in a friendly environment, and Paypal means that it's easy to extract payment from potential customers all over the world.

Every so often, whenever my father takes a breath in between queries as to why I'm not working for Barack Obama or Anna Wintour, he comes out with the occasional gem of wisdom. 'Diversify or die' is one of my favourites. What's the one thing that every rich person seems to have in common (apart from 'an embryonic, glassy-eyed other half')? Yep, that old chestnut, the portfolio of varied assets.

An apartment block here, an priceless masterpiece there; it's childs play for the Trumps of the world. For us though, it's a reminder not to keep all our eggs in one basket - we could well be using some of them to make fairy cakes for profit instead. 

A soulless and harrowing pursuit

One of the most soulless and harrowing pursuits in the life of man, along with reading the telephone book or a six-hour treadmill-propelled powerwalk up a steep slope must surely be the search for a suitable job conducted entirely though the internet. The internet usually serves to dent only my credit rating.

Now though, with the threat of total insolvency ever-looming, jobs and recruitment websites are ever-circling my consciousness like a group of peckish vultures just waiting for the inevitable collapse before they can start picking at the carrion of my sanity.

This may seem like an embellishment on my part, but if you do think so, you haven't fallen prey to the recruitment trap yet. A friend of mine recently recounted a horror story where she was plagued with jobs she specified she didn't want in the first place. When she did get a job (without any help from the recruitment agency, may I add) she was unceremoniously told that she may hate her job and that she could contact the agency when she inevitably became unemployed again. That particular agency is still waiting for her to call back.

My own beef is not with the agencies. My problem is with job websites. The typical search goes a little like this. I go on www.nojobshere.ie and click 'Cork', then 'Editorial' or 'Writing'. Two jobs await my application. IT consultant and wind analyst. I'm familiar with the concept of applicants embellishing their skillsets, but when did employers start doing it? Don't get me wrong, at this stage I'd be a guinea pig eating lipstick in a testing lab if it earned me money, but I don't have enough fur. I would be a wind analyst if I could, however, I still struggle to grasp what humid weather is and I don't understand the difference between a tornado and a hurricane.

In times like this, people find they can still fall back on their side hustle. The side hustle is generally a hobby that brings in a bit of money or a part-time job that got you through college before you graduated and went on the dole. My side hustle was bartending. I still tend bar from time to time and I love doing it.

Back to the jobs website. Click 'Cork'. Click 'Bar Staff'. Two jobs. Hmm, that's ok, let's see... IT consultant and wind analyst. Great.

Profound trivialities

"In one sense what may pass between the pope and myself may be trivialities. In another sense, the fact of talking trivialities is itself a portent of great significance. But the pleasantries which we exchange may, as one church leader said, be pleasantries about profundities." If you're confused as to whether or not I stopped off in the Vatican this week for a nice cup of tea and a natter with His Holiness, don't be. For one, the above quote is by Geoffrey Fischer, a former archbishop of Canterbury.

Secondly, if you're gullible enough to think I could or would discuss any matters with the Pope, trivial or no, you should seriously consider a common sense transplant. However, the above quote was brought to my mind when my grandmother died and I ended up back in the hometown, spending (too many) hours in a chapel and talking over the most profound trivialities with family members I hadn't seen in (far, far too many) years.

I used to be the tallest of all my cousins. Now they're all six feet or more, gangly in suits and surreptitiously swigging bottles of Bud at the wake. Together we talk about school, college, girlfriends, smoking, drinking, where we go, what we do, who we do... the most trivial of trivialities.

And we exchange stories. As the eldest, I remember more than they do about our grandmother before she got ill, so I tell them about what a good cook she was and how mad she would get when we didn't eat our porridge. Our parents would tell us about how she owned her own business in a time when that was unique, or when she gave our aunt's Christmas outfits to a girl begging without a coat, or the time she nearly got shot by Soviet border guards in Russia for trying to sell contraband nylons and had to run away into a forest.

These stories may seen like throwaway vignettes, but together these trivialities sum up a more profound whole. I knew Nan the doting grandmother, Nan the grump, Nan the feminist, Nan the business woman. The woman I'm incredibly sorry I didn't know until now was Nan the uncompromising trailblazer.

This column was originally going to be about summons from the dole office - a demand for a form I'd already sent in. But then, something profound happened. Everything else seems, well, trivial.

It's my hypothesis that one of the few things that keeps a human being sane in a topsy turvy world gone mad is the unerring self belief in our own intrinsic goodness. Deep down, none of us really thinks that we are bad people. It's this quality that makes ladies who lunch a little smug. It is the origin of all arrogance and self-entitlement in many politicos.

Worst of all, it is the belief in how damn great you are that makes serial killers do the things they do.

Thankfully, we are not living in a society of Ted Bundys in training (although you might change your mind observing the chaos at 2am on Patrick Street). Most people are quietly assured that they are good people just trying to live their lives in relative peace and make something productive out of their lot.

There is one small group of people that see through our vital fallacy - the charity mugger. These people turn an average walk into the city centre into an obstacle course that would intimidate an SAS officer on amphetamines. We weave around them avoiding eye contact, hoping they remain static and don't follow you down the street like a donkey following a fat-wallet shaped carrot.

I tell myself that I want to avoid these people because they are invasive, pushy and, should I hit my head and suddenly decide that it's a fantastic idea to give my bank details to a stranger on the street, a proportion of the money I give will go to the smiling person in the day-glo vest and not to the kids in Africa.

The charity muggers know all this. They also know that we are sometimes just plain unwilling to give; a trait that is probably unrepresentative of the inherent goodness that we all feel lives inside ourselves.

Last Friday I found myself attending not one but two charity events organised by people who were remarkable in their capacity for giving.

I was feeling less generous. On being informed that there was a donation suggested for a glass of champagne, I pouted. Where was my free booze? This champagne isn't free!

A bad moment, in my opinion. I like to think I don't look like a child throwing a tantrum - most of the time anyway. I corrected myself, donated, then spent the last of my money on raffle tickets.

I won a bottle of whiskey. Ah. There was the free booze.

Dole Mountain

Applying for the dole can be an arduous process akin to climbing a mountain, albeit one constructed mainly of red tape, paperwork and awkward conversations with social workers. No-one expects it to be an easy climb. When you finally reach the summit, there's a distinct sense of anticlimax. What now? Now that you've scaled the heady heights of Mount Saint Going Nowhere (career-wise, that is), what is to be done?

Then you realise that your view was obscured and you are, in fact, looking at tackling another sheer cliff face, twice as intimidating as the previous climb.

Ok, so maybe I went a teeny, tiny bit overboard with the metaphor. Hopefully you get the picture. The dole is no free ride. If it was an easy process, everyone would be claiming. My claim involves sending in a docket every week, which results in a cheque being sent directly to my door every Tuesday. Very convenient, or so you might think. No stroll down to the post office for me. I can just sit on my bum and literally watch the money roll in.

Except the money has not rolled in. It has not sprinted, ran, jogged, tumbled, somersaulted, crawled or even lethargically dragged itself in. I haven't received a payment in three weeks.

A quick trip to the dole office revealed that my dockets had magically dissolved en route to Hanover Street. Or, as one person baldly put it, "You must not have sent them in." If only it were that simple. Fortunately, I have the wherewithal to remember popping a little yellow piece of paper in a postbox once a week. It seems that an impasse has been reached, yet another obstacle to scramble over in the race to reach the unreachable summit.

In life, as with my column, I tend to compartmentalise things by rote. It's easier to believe that things will work out when a situation fits neatly into a preconceived slot. Problems need to be moulded into metaphors and fitted into boxes in order for a solution to be found, or at least that's what we control freaks tell ourselves.

You'd think that with easy metaphors comes easy conclusions. Instead I find myself as the perennial climber stranded on a precipice, with supplies dwindling and the air becoming gradually thinner. I find myself repeating a phrase that has become a mantra for young people everywhere - just what the hell do I do now?

Timetabling

As a barely employed single woman, I take it for granted that I have to get a job. Long gone are the days when an unmarried woman of twenty-two who has parents of reasonable means could lounge around on a chaise and smoke cigarettes endlessly (in a slim, black cigarette holder a la Breakfast at Tiffany's, natch), waiting for a suitor to call. The days of the Lady of Leisure are dead and gone. They've gone the way of the Mitford sisters, fur as a not just accepted but essential accessory and an era when fascism was fashionable.

However, since I'm a lady at my leisure, I think it's wise to impart upon those with real lives how the new Lady of Leisure (I would think up a good acronym but LOL has unfortunately been hijacked by instant messaging) spends her days.

11am. Wake up. Realise it's still technically morning so go back to sleep. 1pm. This it the point at which most people turn on TV3 for an Oprah/Ellen double bill. Since I don't own a tv and can hear the rumbles in my stomach I call my aunt and ask her if she wants to buy my lunch. If she says no I go stand outside her office, rub my stomach and shriek until she comes out and buys me some fishcakes.

2pm - 4pm. A healthy body is essential, so after my one meal of the day I get the heart rate up by going into Brown Thomas and calculating how many weeks of dole money it would take to buy THAT dress. Repeat with the shoe lounge and handbag area. Leave with ten years shaved off my life from minor heart attack brought on by thinking about an already overstretched credit card limit.

4pm - 5pm. Go to the public library on Grand Parade and request approximately twelve million books. 5.30pm. Home. Call my mother and tell her that I lost my glasses again. While she lectures me on being responsible for my possessions I pop the phone on mute and make a cup of tea.

7pm. Time to do some writing. I'll just go on Facebook for a little while while I find my inspiration... 9pm. Hmm. An ex boyfriend is no longer listed as 'single'. This needs further investigation. I'll start writing in two minutes.

4am. Ok, I really must start writing now. No more procrastination.

4.05am. Sleep.

The Fear

It's always nice to be woken up to find yourself invited to a social happening. A movie, gigs, the beach... the permutations are endless. However, it's a sign of the economic times that for every text message I get inviting me to a gig I get another one inviting me to an event in a totally different country and wouldn't I like to move there altogether?

Alright, friends, you want me to leave the country. I get the picture. Thanks a bunch. In the past month alone I have been invited to New York and London (and, inexplicably, Tokyo), but, through the fatal combination of inertia and a paralysing fear of change, I find myself unable to leave. We daydream endlessly, but all we seem to do is play a weird cyclical game of Chinese Whispers, where we start out in Sydney and end up in Beirut, then decide that it's too confusing and that we should just stay where we are.

I would love to go to New York or London (The main incentives remain a subterranean train system and the ability to buy cheap food from a tiny silver cart on the street), stay there for a year or two and return with a richer life experience and hopefully, a nice fat wallet. My friends, generally speaking, are all the same.

Most of us have been traumatised by the economic goings-on of the past year and have been working very hard. So hard in fact, that if we even get the slightest sniff of a better job prospect that we cling to it for dear life like a limpet to a slippery rock in a hurricane. What if we left, then came home to find that every job in Ireland had evaporated and we were due to die alone (and poor) because we made the foolish step of emigrating?

If we as a nation are emerging from a recession hangover, then people of my generation all have the Fear. For the uninitiated, the Fear is the paralysing anxiety that usually accompanies a queasy stomach and an inability to remember what happened the night before.

Unfortunately for us, we remember all too clearly what insalubrious happenings we were subject to. Ironically, it is the past that is holding us back from barrelling into the future head-first, and any other country that might hold a different future for us.

When you least expect it

It's often when you least expect it that things blow up in your face. In my case, something literally did blow up in my face. My computer, to be precise. There, I was, tapping away with no more cares in the world than the average person (so, a lot of cares and preoccupations, but nothing as important as, say, an impending kidney transplant or a hot date with Robert Pattinson) when a slow, insidious wisp of smoke started snaking its way out of the adaptor socket.

At the time, I was writing an article to a very stringent deadline. So I did what any person would do. I just kept on writing and hoping that I wouldn't get burned or electrocuted, or set my duvet on fire. My house is a tinderbox. I get frightened using the toaster or having an overly-hot shower. I wrote all I could until my computer was on the verge of melting into a large, white plastic blob and calmly shut it, flapped it around the place like a Victorian carpet beater to extinguish the smoke and stowed it under my bed, where it currently sits.

Within three hours of the laptop fiasco, I was delivered no less than three pieces of bad news that affected me directly and the general air was that of a vacuum where the bottom has apparently fallen out of everything.

When you boil it down, my woes are men and money. Both are unavoidable and on a par, inevitability wise, with death and taxes. However, you know when taxes are coming, and death only gets to hit you once (if you're lucky). Men and money are indiscriminate in their ability to stike as often and as hard as you'll let them, which works to my disadvantage because I can be incredibly flathiuil with my wallet and, er, my heart.

The man problem is easy to fix. I just have to pop out my contacts and avoid looking at anything not carrying a handbag for the forseeable future. The money problem... That's something that just seems to follow me around like a bad smell, like Eau de Foolish Spending. Like the smell of a charred G5 Mac smouldering away under the bed. And unlike a mans aftershave, this smell is not transient. It's built to linger.

Hobbies

Everyone has a hobby. Some people like to free climb up sheer cliff faces and tightrope-walk between two skyscrapers. Some people are masters of useless information, annihilating their opponents at Trivial Pursuit and cutting a victorious swathe throughout Cork's many pub quizzes.

Some people make a bit of money on the side, a welcome incentive to continue doing what they love. Others, on the other hand, suffer such delusions of grandeur that they think their hobby will propel them into the vast strata of stardom (cursory viewing of The X Factor and America's Got Talent provides innumerable examples of the blissfully oblivious hordes).

A hobby is, if anything, the development of a skill. However, my skill is probably up there in terms of uselessness with the waterproof sponge and the blameless government minister. For I can read really, really fast. Yes, it's that useless.

My hobby is reading. Predictable, pedestrian and utterly reliable. When I was in fourth class the library was stocked with Babysitter's Club books and editions of Goosebumps and Sweet Valley High. This was a far cry from home, where my dad was more likely to offer me a biography of Nazi architect Albert Speer than a bubblegum-hued book with a picture of two smiling tweens with California tans on the cover.

I was hooked and like most addicts, I hid it well at first. However, it soon spiralled downwards. I ended up reading three books a day during class, a habit that eventually culminated with a torn copy of Dawn and the Older Boy and a teacher with a severely bruised shin.

When I went on the dole, an insightful friend pointed me in the general direction of the public Library on Grand Parade, knowing that I loved reading but unaware of the speed with which I plow through books. That was August. Now I read on average six thick books a week and I'm pretty sure some library staff members think "Oh no, not her again" and go hide in the reference section whenever I walk in the door. Some people drunk dial. I come home from a night out and look at the online catalogue.

Hobbies are supposed to fill spare time. But when all the time you have is going spare, what happens then? Answers on a postcard please. I'll get around to reading them eventually.

Hobbies

Everyone has a hobby. Some people like to free climb up sheer cliff faces and tightrope-walk between two skyscrapers. Some people are masters of useless information, annihilating their opponents at Trivial Pursuit and cutting a victorious swathe throughout Cork's many pub quizzes.

Some people make a bit of money on the side, a welcome incentive to continue doing what they love. Others, on the other hand, suffer such delusions of grandeur that they think their hobby will propel them into the vast strata of stardom (cursory viewing of The X Factor and America's Got Talent provides innumerable examples of the blissfully oblivious hordes).

A hobby is, if anything, the development of a skill. However, my skill is probably up there in terms of uselessness with the waterproof sponge and the blameless government minister. For I can read really, really fast. Yes, it's that useless.

My hobby is reading. Predictable, pedestrian and utterly reliable. When I was in fourth class the library was stocked with Babysitter's Club books and editions of Goosebumps and Sweet Valley High. This was a far cry from home, where my dad was more likely to offer me a biography of Nazi architect Albert Speer than a bubblegum-hued book with a picture of two smiling tweens with California tans on the cover.

I was hooked and like most addicts, I hid it well at first. However, it soon spiralled downwards. I ended up reading three books a day during class, a habit that eventually culminated with a torn copy of Dawn and the Older Boy and a teacher with a severely bruised shin.

When I went on the dole, an insightful friend pointed me in the general direction of the public Library on Grand Parade, knowing that I loved reading but unaware of the speed with which I plow through books. That was August. Now I read on average six thick books a week and I'm pretty sure some library staff members think "Oh no, not her again" and go hide in the reference section whenever I walk in the door. Some people drunk dial. I come home from a night out and look at the online catalogue.

Hobbies are supposed to fill spare time. But when all the time you have is going spare, what happens then? Answers on a postcard please. I'll get around to reading them eventually.

Erudite, eh?

Last week the Godfather came to town (my actual godfather, not a head of an Irish branch of the Cosa Nostra). He is a very smart man. So smart, in fact, that he came first in an episode of The Weakest Link and has been on Mastermind not once but twice. Apparently his specialist topic was so broad that the producers asked his to make it even more specialised. He is the stuff of quiz show lore. He is just that intelligent.

We went for a very pleasant dinner with my aunt and uncle at a chinese restaurant. In between the Hot and Sour soup and prawn toast my aunt exclaimed that she had shown the Godfather my most recent column. I wracked my brain. Did I talk about shoes? For the sake of the man who was supposed to be the light by which my spiritual wellbeing was nurtured, I hoped that I had talked about the collected works of Anthony Trollope and not something that Bridget Jones would find pedestrian.

As a rule, I take criticism at face value, so I'll believe anything. However, he's the only family member that I know would tell the bald-faced truth without reserve. After a slight pause, he pronounced my work as 'erudite'. I thanked him, prentended that I knew what the word actually meant, finished my meal and promptly ran home to the bathroom where, inexplicably, my Italian housemate keeps the dictionary and looked up the meaning of 'erudite'.

It means 'full of learning' by the way. I know I'm full of something, but I'm fairly sure that it's not learning material. Maybe it was just a kind way of saying that I recover gracefully from all the stupid mistakes I make as the family's token unemployed person. Perhaps it was a comment on how the columns are always presented with a convenient conclusion; a story with a moral disguised with the smoke and mirrors of oddly-timed quips. Or my learned Godfather may actually think that I am a relatively smart person. It's the definition of irony then that I can't actually think of a conclusion for this week's piece. Or maybe it's just unfortunate. I'm not too sure. I might have to go consult the dictionary in the bathroom. It's all a learning process, after all.

Recessionistas (probably know a person that will) favour legal highs*

I'm at a loss at how to start this week's column. Usually, I throw in a couple of flippant remarks about being so poor that I have to steal toilet paper from pubs (everyone does it, I make no apologies) or formulate relationships with men just because they always have a handy supply of spaghetti and stir-in sauce (I won't tell him if you won't). Then I launch into an anecdote that leads into a conclusion that hopefully exposes a vein of the Irish Recessionista (or Recessionisto; this equally concerns the men) subculture that I'm a part of.

There are no flippant remarks about this week's chosen topic, only flippant attitudes. If you think that statement was hyperbolic, then draw the curtains, dim the lights and recoil in horror at the revelation that the average recessionista will, by merits of her age and social status, have come into contact with drugs, illegal or legal, at some stage in her life. She will either take some sort of drug recreationally or will have more than one friend that does.

I'm no anomaly. I am also not writing this in order to judge anyone. However, I do write this column every week as a marker of the shifting habits of my age group.

Drug taking trends, at least within my small cotierie of friend and friends-of-friends who partake, have changed from the acquiring of illegal,Class B substances from slightly dodgy dealers to legal, but possibly more dangerous substances that mimic the effects of cocaine and MDMA from head shops. I asked one friend about this shift - apparently it's a number of combinations.

It's becoming increasingly hard to find illegal drugs. Legal highs are generally much cheaper. However, these legal highs aren't marketed as such but rather as a range of products from plant fertilizer to bath salts to, disconcertingly, weedkiller. It's therefore impossible for someone to know how much is too much, which doesn't bode well in any context.

I'm not smart (or stupid) enough to pretend that I have a solution that would work for everyone from ravers to tokers with MS to sad sacks like me who just bob their heads and stare from the sidelines.

The likelihood is that we also know someone who died a drug-related death. A few nights ago I listened to a friend's laboured breathing as he slept after too many bath salts and hoped that he wouldn't be the next to go.

Like I said, I'm not here to judge. I just don't want anyone to get hurt.

*Print headline reads 'Recessionistas favour legal highs'

Lucky for some

Some people have all the luck. They can accept every invitation extended. They only get sick when life has conveniently paused for them to snuffle in bed with a bottle of Olbas Oil and a big fat novel. I am not one of those people. I'm the kind of person who holds a grudge against self entitlement to such a degree that I snipe at those chosen few whose time management and general contentment is not due to overzealous reading of Bill Cullen tomes, but rather through a concentrated streak of luck.

During a very inconvenient bout in bed this week I finally got around to reading Freakonomics, a book concerning odd and unexpected correlations. The book's authors draw lines between schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers, estate agents and the Ku Klux Klan - all in terms of crime and progress. My highest qualification in the field of economics was a Leaving Certificate honours C3, so bear with me if the following question sounds nonsensical. Do lucky people commit more 'victimless' crimes?

It's impossible to quantify luck, but I do notice from personal experience that my lucky friends are the ones much more likely to cheat on their social welfare returns. Friends with bachelors degrees teach five grinds a week and can easily earn an extra €150 a week on top of their €200 or so dole payment. One friend had to be physically restrained from going to the post office to claim social welfare for his brother (who conveniently already had a job... in Canada).

It's much more likely that these people may well be lucky, but they are also used to things going their own way. Similarly, they are very surprised when it all goes pear-shaped and the government discovers that Fluffy the Pomeranian can't legally be considered a dependent child.

Myself, not so much. Every Tuesday when the dole cheque comes in the post I rip open the envelope expecting to see a crumpled note scrawled in blood asking why I didn't declare the tenner my nan gave me on my last visit home and that they're coming to put me in the chokey. However, I accept no money on the side for fear of repercussion. I'm safe as houses. That was, until this week when an ominous-looking letter arrived threatening to cut me off. In blue ink. Some people really do have all the luck. If you meet one, tell them I'd like mine back please.