BOOK OF THE DAY: BRIDGET HOURI CANreviews Sit Tight Get it Right: How to Beat the Recession Blues in Irelanded Caroline Madden and Laura Slattery Blackhall Publishing 180pp, €15
THE RECESSION is creating work for journalists, publishers and pundits, if no one else. You can't open a paper without seeing recession analysis in the opinion pages, and recession-beating tips – now a cottage industry – in the lifestyle pages. First off the mark was writer and Sunday Timescolumnist India Knight. Her Thrift Bookis full of inspirational tips such as her bargain basement facemask: just crush aspirin with water into a paste. Knight's book came out in November, so either she was working on it anyway and was lucky in her timing, or she responded to the collapse of Lehman's with incredible speed.
The editors of Sit Tight Get it Right– financial journalists Caroline Madden and Laura Slattery – weren't as quick off the mark so a lot of their information has already done the rounds. Swap parties? Scarlett O'Hara's curtains? We've heard all that.
Sit Tight Get it Rightis a compendium of advice on how to dress, eat, do up your home, travel and holiday on a budget, largely given by journalists – many of whom write for The Irish Times. There is also a section written by consultants and pensions advisers on how to manage redundancy, investments and pensions. In 180 pages, the book purports to answer all your lifestyle/job/investment questions. In appearance and tone, it is both upbeat – yes, you can look good on €50! – and feeds into Michael Moore's "climate of fear" (Don't think you need to read the chapter on redundancy? Don't get too smug . . .)
Thirteen minds went into this book, so it’s a mix of concrete tips – go to www.swiftcommute.ie to find carpoolers in your area – and philosophical musings, depending on the author.
“I don’t believe we were ever that comfortable with the New Money,” writes Quentin Fottrell. “We thought it would fill that void, heal the wounds that we have carried on behalf of our forebears for generations: the years of living under colonialism; the long divisive struggle for independence; living with terrorism . . . and the bitter tears of emigration.”
Well maybe, or maybe, like the Swiss, French, Brits and others who never suffered the bitter tears of emigration, we just liked having money.
The book is best when dispensing concrete advice arising from the contributors’ expertise; it is less useful when musing or generalising.
Conor Pope’s chapter “Never Shop When You’re Hungry” makes the point, through analysing tomato and bean content in Tesco and Lidl baked beans, that the cheapest isn’t always best value, and is full of useful websites which ship to Ireland. The only website Georgina Heffernan gives for online fashion is eBay, of which we don’t need reminding – there are hundreds of other websites out there which we’d like advice on. I’d have welcomed street addresses of vintage stores round the country.
Andrew McCann’s “State Supports to Get You Through the Slump” is to the point, with figures and phone numbers, but these supports are being cut so rapidly, the chapter could soon be out of date. Michael Kelly’s chapter on growing your own food makes an elegant case but only answers the “why”, not the “how, what, where or when” of gardening. Suggestions of books or websites to take us to the next step would have been useful.
A lot of the tips are a bit "same old" – I don't want to be told again to sew ribbons on clothes (and am not convinced it would look anything except Little House on the Prairie). And it's depressing in a book aimed at working adults to be reminded to neatly type your CV in black and white. As these writers keep telling us, money is tight, therefore all purchases – including this book – should be necessities.
Bridget Hourican is a freelance journalist and historian