There is a sense of excitement about uncertainty. Enjoy the recession, while it lasts, writes Quentin Fottrell.
'IT WON'T last." That's all I've heard this summer. "Lovely day, isn't it?" I say. "It won't last," they reply. It's right up there with that other favourite Irish catchphrase: "It's a pity . . ."
Message all malcontents: please allow us to enjoy the sun while we still have it. I am aware there is a storm cloud out there with all our names on it, but there is no need to spoil it for everyone else. Some wag suggested recently that George Lee should do the weather as it would finally push us over the edge. I think it would do the opposite: put it all in perspective.
Even when it rains, life is pretty good. We have a standard of living our parents or grandparents only dreamed of. But our fatalistic streak made us spend money like there was no tomorrow, effectively turning wine into bottled water and paying through the nose for it.
What would we do with perennial good weather? Or dizzy merry-go-rounds instead of economic cycles? Pope Benedict - or P Benny, as he is no stranger to bling - says we suffer from "insatiable consumption".
If that's true, we would want more, more, more. And then some.
Money couldn't buy us happiness . . . or class. We still can't define the latter. Is it salary? No. A nice house? Nice try. Golf club membership? We'd like to think so. Job? Many plumbers earn more than clever academics. Ireland's richest man, farmer's son Seán Quinn, left s
chool before his super sweet sixteenth. He's not middle class. And he's no aristo. He is, however, a rare example of someone who calmly weathers both good and bad climates. Of course, he more than most can afford to.
But even shareholders have jumped into the Red Sea of the Iseq both feet first. Over the last few weeks, there has been a slew of company agms. They were an eye-opener.
I thought these management/shareholder face-offs would be like tribunals, a gin-soaked boulevard of bitter tears and recriminations. (No retiring to Florida or Mayo at 50 . . .) How wrong I was. Some shareholders were in their element. When the backside falls out of our trousers, we walk around with a big smile on our faces as if we always knew it would happen.
The fizz may have gone out of C&C's cider sales, but their recent agm was full of macabre Ernest & Julio Gallo humour.
One man joked: "I am a large shareholder . . . with a very small shareholding." Ba-boom! Of C&C's disastrous share buyback last year - before the shares plunged - another said, "I don't think we should be in the camping business." They seem to be dealing with their losses terribly well. But it's no surprise that cider, a traditional working man's drink, was popular during the boom: we remain underdogs at heart.
A generation ago, we were all working-class heroes. We still are. I don't believe we were really at home with the new money. Take our latent wine snobbery: we whirl it around and say it's a cheeky little number, but don't you wince when the smirking waiter asks you to taste it? As Alfred P Doolittle said in My Fair Lady: "Who asked him to make a gentleman out of me? I was happy. I was free. I touched pretty nigh everyone for money when I wanted it, same as I touched him . . . I have to live for others now, not for myself. Middle-class morality."
There is a sense of excitement about uncertainty. "Did you hear about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?" a giddy friend asked me. She had never heard of the troubled American mortgage lenders a week ago, but she now follows their trials and tribulations like an episode of George & Mildred, the 1970s sitcom about the bumbling George and upwardly mobile Mildred. Like us, she tried to keep up with her neighbours, but her social ambitions were always thwarted. We can relate to that comedy formula now. (It's funny because it's true!)
The economic pothole is the best news story in years. Journalists are the biggest doom and gloom merchants of all. We were off to a flying start last year with queues outside Northern Rock. It was a slightly farcical re-creation of bank runs and soup kitchens during the Great Depression. (The average deposit was about €90,000.) Take this recent headline from one business journal: "Three bears trample Goldilocks." The three bears are economic growth, appreciating assets and low inflation. And they seemed so friendly at the time. It is a wheel of fortune: success follows failure, follows success, and so on. Once you let go, you become a spectator in your own life story.
This latest story that has all the right ingredients: volatile shares, house market bubbles, embattled politicians, class consciousness, national pride and threats to our precious lifestyles.
There comes a time after the heavens open when you get so soaked you just don't care any more. There's little we can do about it now, so we may as well put on our galoshes, go out and enjoy the rain. While it lasts.