It is de rigueur to plead penury at every opportunity, says ISABEL MORTON

HAS ANYONE noticed how our attitudes to everything have changed of late? And, not necessarily for the better.

Now that we have at last accepted that we are all suffering from the Celtic Catastrophe (to a greater or lesser extent), we are recovering from our shocked silence and are starting to talk again.

However, these days we no longer have time for the niceties of life, have eliminated the superfluous and are cutting to the chase. The rules of social etiquette and manners have been re-written to suit leaner times.

A woman told me how she was complaining to a group of friends about how she was having difficulty letting her villa in the south of Spain, and immediately one of the group asked her if she could “borrow it” for a few weeks as it would be “empty anyway”. She went on to play the misery card about how otherwise she “wouldn’t be able to afford a holiday for her children this year” because things were “tight”.

Cheeky or clever? In my view the former but, either way, an example of how some people are making sure to get good value out of the global downturn and are milking it for all that it’s worth.

Where we were once surprised at the speed with which the nouveau riche appeared on the scene, we are now astonished at the frightening pace with which the nouveau pauvre have multiplied of late.

It has recently become acceptable (indeed, actively encouraged) to talk openly about one’s lack of “funding”.

In fact, the unsavoury subject of one’s “cash flow” and “liquidity” is now the main topic of conversation at every social gathering.

It is virtually de rigueur to plead penury at every possible opportunity.

The tales of woe are being told to all who will listen and some are almost competitive about the amount of money they have lost. To such an extent, and with such enthusiasm, that one has to suspect that there is an element of exaggeration involved, if not blatant lies.

Those who never before admitted to having had a nest egg invested in bank shares are now claiming to have lost hundreds of thousands (even millions) of euros.

Others, who never before appeared to have two pence to rub together, are now revealing all and admitting to owning numerous properties, whose mortgages are recently proving difficult to service.

Do we feel sorry for them now? Debatable.

Indeed the “sympathy votes” are rationed out very carefully these days and the number of votes you get will depend on precisely how you earned your money in the first place, rather than how you subsequently lost it.

If you have recently been made redundant from any job (other than one in property, construction or banking), you’ll get the maximum number of sympathy votes. Ditto if you are one of the “unfortunates” who thought you were playing safe by investing all your savings in bank shares (particularly if you are elderly and never indulged in the nouveau bling lifestyle).

If, on the other hand, your bank shares were only one element of your extensive investment portfolio and you had been living the good life for years on the proceeds, then sorry, but your sympathy votes will be severely reduced.

If, however, you were a “greedy” property investor, you are unlikely to earn a single vote of support. Anyone who invested in bricks and mortar (other than a basic roof over their own head) is now viewed as deserving of hellfire and brimstone.

These days, it is considered to be nothing short of outrageous for any one individual to own more than one property, despite the fact that the Government dangled numerous incentive schemes (such as Section 23) before our eyes for years in an effort to get us to invest in same.

And now that we have started to open up and discuss our problems, we feel perfectly entitled to query and question everyone’s personal financial circumstances and have no qualms about asking very direct questions.

One architect I spoke to complained: “They ask if I’m busy. If I say that I am, I’m not believed. If I say that business is a bit slow, they interrupt me in order to remind me of how well I did during the good times.”

A builder/developer I spoke to agrees that the jealousy people kept hidden during the good days is now barely concealed: “I’m regularly greeted by someone who will gleefully ask me what my property portfolio is now worth, or ask me out straight about how much I owe the bank, or whether NAMA will be taking over my debts.”

In general, however, we are all sympathetic and understanding of people’s misfortunes (whether real or imaginary) as every time we hear a tale of woe we recall the expression “there but for the grace of God go I”.