You know what? When the recession
really starts, I hope it is made very clear that it has.
For the past three years it's been variously “coming”,
“round the corner” and, more recently, “starting
to bite” - but it all still seems a bit vague for
something so supposedly gigantic. Are we experiencing it
or not? Was the Lehman thing the start? If so, can we make
it official? Honestly, this economic downturn is coyer about
coming out than Lindsay Lohan. What we really need is an
edition of the 10pm BBC News to open with the words: “The
credit crunch officially started at 1.17pm today. This is
it. It's ‘Oh S*** Friday'. All your savings were set
on fire half an hour ago. Britain is now worth 19p. A message
from Downing Street said: ‘Start eating squirrels.
Love, Gordon Brown'.”
Of course, the truth of the matter is that, more often than
not, we do not know when an event or epoch has begun. We
must accept that the events of Man are rendered neither
as thunderclaps nor inviolable calendar entries. Instead
they are more like a mist from which you can hear the odd
voice saying: “Oh wow - the Industrial Revolution!
How long has that been going on? I always miss the start
of these things.”
One aspect of the crunch has definitely begun, however:
the middle classes getting quite excited about it. Now,
I don't like bashing the middle classes. I've spent nearly
15 years getting into off-white emulsions and learning to
refer to camping holidays as “jolly” so that
I might walk among these clean, cheerful, wine-appreciating
folk. If you're going to be in a class, you might as well
go for the one that is within a handy commuting distance
from both the working and upper classes and which has, as
Mark from Peep Show boasts, “pension provision coming
out of its arse”. The middle class is the most comfortable
and convenient social stratum. I'm totally pro.
But be that as it may, within the middle classes is a faction
that is responding to the impending Cashpocalypse with what
seems suspiciously like eagerness. Joy, even. They've practically
got recession advent calendars, counting down to the day
where the first Pret A Manger goes bust. Over the past year
a series of Guardian and Observer supplements and “specials”
have sketched out a vision of just how fulfilling a global
depression could be for their readers. According to their
features departments, a decade of economic stagnation, energy
crises and social turmoil is going to pass in an enjoyable
homely whirl of home-made fruitcakes, Victorian parlour
games and a covetable back-garden turnip patch. The Guardian
has shown us how to make corsages out of ribbon-scraps and
a front-door mat out of wooden pegs;just last weekend The
Observer ran a feature on collecting free, wild foods that
made reference to a recipe for “acacia-flower beignets”.
Obviously, I want in on all this; it sounds brilliant. Especially
if you've bought a new wardrobe to go with it - maybe spurning
all your Primark gear for a couple of £200 “post
credit-crunch investment pieces” from Whistles.
Upsettingly, however, I can't quite see how I'm going to
fit having a sexy recession into my to-do list. After all,
when we're all having to walk six miles to an emergency
electricity spigot, fill a bucket, then walk six miles back
- just to power the telly for Strictly Come Dancing - it's
hard to see how we can fit in making all these “comforting”
pikelets and “cheery” felt hot-water bottle
covers in the shape of ponies. Don't get me wrong. I know
where the middle classes are coming from on this one. After
all, when the entire Western world looks like it's about
to go down the economic U-bend, it's comforting to believe
that you can blithely style your way out of it while consuming
a great deal more cake. Who would not like to think that
the best way to prepare for the “worst economic conditions
in 60 years” is to remodel the house in a knowingly
“folksy” manner? If there's any way I can shield
my family from the vicissitudes of international stock-market
turbulence simply by making a lovely sprigged apron in the
manner of Cath Kidston, I'm all over it.
However, and sadly, it is all ultimately a bit like Marie
Antoinette building a rustic hamlet in the gardens of Versailles
and dressing up as a milkmaid. I have considerable hands-on
experience of being very poor and, during those years, one
thing was very noticeable: absolutely no one was wandering
into fields in £200 Whistles dresses, gathering acacia
flowers and turning them into beignets. My experience leads
me to believe that the best response to learning that we
are all imminently destitute really isn't “Hurrah!
That'll make Britain more cosy”; it is: “Right.
I'm going to marry a Russian oligarch, rent out the kids
and sell the cats to an Albanian furrier.”
The most amusing part of all this is the secret belief that
underpins the whole thing: that, since the Sixties, the
working classes have been kind of failing at being poor
- notable lack of bubble-and-squeak, doorstep scrubbing,
making-do-and-mending, considering a bottle of brown ale
a treat, etc - and that it's down to the middle classes
to teach them, all over again, how to do poverty properly.
As if this country could use the recession to reintroduce
a Heritage Range of ruddy-cheeked mums - knitting cardigans
and boiling up sheets in a copper - if we publish enough
Guardian “how to” guides. Like when we brought
the beavers back in Scotland!
Ultimately, however, I suspect that the reason we haven't
spent the past 40 years darning socks, making oatcakes and
entertaining the children with shadow-puppet theatres is
because it's a bit of a pain in the arse compared with going
to the shops and then slapping on a DVD of The Incredibles.
After all, one of the most notable aspects of humanity is
that we do tend to carry on doing stuff we enjoy. We rarely
accidentally “forget to be poor” for 40 years
if it really is turning us on. If I do end up making trifles
out of swedes and weaving cling-film on a loom, I'm doing
it with the correct attitude: festering resentment that
the Americans buggered everything up.
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