Frankly I’m disappointed with this recession. 

When it hit I was still cosy in my student bubble, drinking cups of tea and watching indifferently as the footsie index of shares plummeted. But graduation was close, and I was looking forward to it. Yeah that’s right: I was looking forward to being a victim of recession. Unemployment meant nothing to me – if my degree had taught me anything it was how to make drinking a cup of tea and reading the newspaper constitute a full day. And so I dreamed romantic dreams of complaining alongside the masses, no longer being subject to men in pubs smugly lecturing me on the Real World. I could be that man.

The reality has been a bit of a let down. Oh don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed plenty of Real conversations in Real pubs with Real men about the Real Word, but these men are a lot less garrulous now that my being a student doesn’t arouse their wry diatribes. 

When I’m not at the bar nodding in agreement that Gordon Brown is a little bit rubbish, I’m on the internet looking for jobs. Not only is this profoundly dull, it’s also not at all what I had in mind when I had thought about the recession. But then again, whatever people say, this isn’t a Real recession. 

No. Recessions have dust bowls – school taught me that. Or alternatively they have refuse collector strikes and give rise to Punk – my dad taught me that. John Steinbeck wouldn’t have achieved quite the same poignancy if George and Lenny had only to go on monster.co.uk for a bit everyday; and I can’t imagine the public of the 1970s being so very discontent if the stinking mountain of uncollected rubbish outside their door was taken away in exchange for their post being a little late. They were proper recessions. And what have we done? Sat around whining at the weatherman for our lack of barbeques. Frankly we’re an embarrassment to our ancestors. 

Gordon Brown, eh? He can’t even cultivate a decent recession aesthetic. I’ve had my ‘WILL WORK FOR FOOD’ sign ready for months, but hitherto have had little cause to use it. Damn Big Government – what a waste of cardboard and ink. Maybe David Cameron will do better. If some people are to be believed then the Tory plans to cut the country’s deficit without delay could plunge us deeper into crisis. Perhaps Cameron’s simply a fellow traditionalist when it comes to what a recession should look like. 

This is good news for us, truly it is. Because otherwise how are we to look our future grandchildren in the eye when we tell them – as is the grandfather’s right – about what ghastly lives we all had in comparison to their cosy little existences? My granddad was a miner for God’s sake! If all I have are stories about late post and barbeque-less summers then I’m not sure if I’m going to instil the same reverence in my antecedents that my granddad instilled in me, and what’s the worth in old age if you can’t even belittle the young for their decadence and luxury? So roll on Age of Austerity, and arm us all with anecdotes to simultaneously awe and bore our children’s children. It is our right, after all.