What does a recession look like, Dad?

Andrew Martin

World markets plunge! Newspapers full of down-pointing graphs and traders with their heads in their hands. In the United Kingdom, some of us have been here before, specifically from 1989 to 1992, but for those who are in their 20s and unsure of what to expect, here’s a beginner’s guide to recession ...

Those weekly shopping sessions will seem like a distant memory, and the merits or otherwise of organic food will suddenly appear less pressing. The empty shop on your high street will no longer be automatically taken over by bouffant-haired real estate agents who install a latte-making machine and a 2m-wide TV as a matter of priority. Instead, nothing will happen to it.

That voice on your mobile answer phone that says, “You have . . . no new messages” will begin to sound rather sadistic, and your boss will suddenly seem less like David Brent, and more like the angel of death. You won’t know where he’ll strike next with the fatal words, “Could you just step into my office, I’d like a quick word ...”

Pop-ups won’t pop-up so often; newspapers will become thinner. The “50 different ways to brighten up your garden this spring” by a star horticulturalist will become a small article on daffodils written by a subeditor. Your property begins to seem less like a lifeboat and more like a millstone, and a lot of chickens come home to roost. That mate of yours who played guitar in a band — but not very well — suddenly takes up teacher training.

On the brighter side, though, you will no longer be welcomed into people’s houses with the dreaded words, “Do you want the guided tour?” and if you are, you can simply ask, “And how much less is it worth now than when you bought it?”

In a recession, it won’t be the people who have got the latest “must-have” gadget who do all the talking. Rather, people who know about root vegetables will come into their own; people who know what to do with a scrag end of lamb or how to fix a broken toaster. Triumphalism will be quelled. Interviewers might cut Victoria Beckham off when she starts talking about the latest additions to her wardrobe, and ask instead whether she leaves the bath water in for David.

Recessions encourage imaginative business ideas, novel-reading, cinema-going, and foster music more akin to the blues than the stridency of Madonna.

The last one gave us Wagamama, loft living and Every Day is Like Sunday by Morrissey. Fear not, kids. You have nothing to lose but your credit cards.

— ©Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008