Indieoma

Having lived on what most people would describe as a ‘disastrous income’ for several years, it was strange to see the recession bringing everybody else into the same sphere, like some kind of evil claw that comes for you in the night. Suddenly everybody else was also too skint to come to the pub/eat at the restaurant/chomp the cigars – but instead of making me rub my hands with glee because ‘hey! I’m no longer the most pathetic moron on earth!’ it just felt plain spooky. Like a thin crust of ice had settled over everybody’s will to live.

Which is weird, because this time last year I swore that the recession didn’t even exist. Everybody whispered about ‘the doom’ because ‘the doom’ could never be spoken out loud, but ‘the doom’ was certainly present and getting on with it’s business of ‘doom-mongering’ – except that I couldn’t quite see it. As far as I was concerned, the cinemas were still open, the supermarkets were still attracting pasty-eyed zombies and Dot Cotton was still chuffing away on fifty fags a day. Wazza big problem?

The problem is, of course, in the subtleties. Many people doffed their hats to the victims of Marks and Sparks, but also felt that the damage was happening ‘to them’ as opposed to ‘us’. The shark was attacking, but it was a few miles down the coastline. But then the little bastard sharks-fin started swimming closer, turning the water red as it zipped along. Advertising cuts lead to freelance budget cuts, which led to… well, tasty food cuts. Out went the mollusks on watercress plateaus, in came the super noodles on toast (good news, at least, for mollusk families everywhere).

If I was on my own I’d probably just surf-out the recession, rent a hippie-van and go on the road until the coast was clear. But it’s a trickier thing when there’s two of you – the other half is depending on you in some shape or form, and small things (like walking instead of paying for the bus) become big things (like plodding penniless through a decaying dystopia while the bus drives past, splashing a freezing puddle in your worthless face, you pathetic w*nker). So it is, that in order to keep the other half happy, you have to start figuring out what you’re gonna spend money on. Show her the glitter! Dazzle her like The Fonz! And cut corners like a dribbling monkeyman.

Thing is, listing what you can cut out from your budget is probably the Singular Most Boring Activity a Human Being is Capable Of. I tried to make a list and within five seconds I was frozen in time, staring into a non-existant parallel universe while dribbling down my cheek. For many people, having no money is the singular worst thing about a recession. Readers! These people are wrong. Making lists of budget cuts is far worse – and turns us all into brow-furrowed dullards.

The third worst thing about recessions is that when everyone’s skint, cheap ‘n nasty shops often win out. For all this talk of voting with our wallets, who’s going to bother with making trade fair when you can buy a frozen, tortured, decapitated chicken from Iceland for £1? If where we shopped during hard times equated to actual political voting, our ethics would be out the window and dancing naked with the Devil on the heath – which possibly explains the rise of the BNP. People are after a quick fix, but just like with cheap food, it’s only gonna make them feel bloated and puppy-dog guilty afterwards.

Add to this the rise in begging! Prostitution! Unemployment! And general desperation! and you could say that this whole economy belly-flop wasn’t such a good idea after all. But there is one reason to be cheerful at least, and with Labour about to get shafted out of office, it’s a slogan which has gone eerily full-circle: things can only get better…


Links to the other Voting with Your Wallet posts:

Johnny – Fishy Business

Farryl – Sustaining Fair Trade

Mike – Think, create share, consume, share, create: Liberalise creative freedom. Free Liberalism.

Gala – Italian Cultural Finance [Italian and English]

Karim – Brandon Holding Hands With Everyone

Open Ideas – Truth Machine- Free Stonhenge