The Language of Economic Collapse

There's not much fun to be gleaned from the current dire straits the globe is facing. But, for sport, I have lightened my mood by looking at how language has shifted ever closer to the precipice... 

• Credit crunch: sounds like a yummy breakfast cereal, must be quite harmless
  
• Banking sector turmoil: that's fine, those fat cats can afford to shed a few pounds
  
• Financial crisis: crisis for who? This affects the city slickers but not me
  
• Economic crisis: say what? The problem is starting to affect us all? Yeah right!
  
• Recession: what a palaver, it's natural for an economy to go through peaks and troughs
  
• Global economic meltdown: Holy Macaroni, this sounds serious! 

Top 10 annoyingly overused words & phrases

I confess that, as I scan the pages of magazines and newspapers, I critique everything I read. Either "This sucks, I could do way better" or "Oh my god, this writer is brilliant, nay God-like, and I am an illiterate fool by comparison".  In the "This sucks" camp, I have the biggest beef with writers that churn out hackneyed phrase upon irritating cliche. So, I decided to put together a list of the worst offenders:

1. Check! Commonly found on the pages of fashion rags, as writers fawn over the way a particular celebrity has been dressed by their stylist. As in, "Gasp. Just look how Agyness Deyn rocks this look. Comedy sunglasses. Check. Ludicrous ensemble. Check."
2. Channeling. Another fashion page faux-pas. As in "This winter, we'll be channeling Ali McGraw's look from Love Story."
3. Fashionista/Fash Factor. Eurgh. Nothing more to add here.
4. ...On acid.  As in "This film is like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang...on acid!". No, no, and thrice no!
5. That. A form of emphasis that smugly refers to a previous headline-hitting moment. As in "That dress" used ad nauseam to describe the dress Liz Hurley wore to steal the show from her then boyfriend Hugh Grant on the red carpet.  
6. Black + any day of the week that heaps unprecedented horrors upon the economy.  As in "Black Monday".  At the moment each 24-hours brings new calamity.  We should stop trying to label the milestone days that define the economic crisis. 
7. Credit Crunch. Enough already. The phrase was coined to describe a very specific problem in the banking sector -- now it is used widely to describe the global economic breakdown. And press releases are loving this phrase as a "topical hook".
8. The new... As in "Carla Bruni is the new Princess Diana" or "Purple is the new black".
9. Sooo. So is a two-letter word, so don't mess. 
10. ? As in "The end for Brangelina?" -- i.e. the arse-covering punctuation mark at the end of the attention-grabbing headline of a featherweight celeb feature based on flimsy speculation.

Banxiety: a very modern malady

Tonight I shall turn off the goggle box, for fear of a modern pox blighting me to the core. No visible outward signs, but a rigorous tension within characterises this illness. Banxiety, recession depression, news blues... call it what you will.  The cause is an excessive ingestion of unpalatable data about bad debt, crippled banking systems, economic collapse and other hitherto unimaginable horrors that are now afflicting our country. The symptoms are sweaty palms, butterflies in the stomach region and an irresistable urge to see greedy bankers brought to justice. 

What every political conference needs...

Bring back spin!  At least it protected us from the reality of slimy infighting and governmental meltdown. Slithery Miliband couldn't hide his intentions at the Labour conference this week with any amount of gloss and Gordon's smile looked Photo-shopped. We can see through all the jaw-aching grins to the desperation of an unpopular government clinging to power... I could almost perceive Gordon's nose growing with every claim that the country's future was in confident, expert hands. That got me thinking -- just for fun, what the conference season needs is a Pinnochiometer: a tool that can measure politicians' half-truths and lies as they trip off their tongues.  

Q. When is a saving not a saving?

A.  When it's a supermarket saving...  This report in The Independent supports the view that the price-cut culture at supermarkets is just gloss. After all, how can supermarkets' savings be genuine when food inflation is rocketing? They cut some prices to grab headlines and engage in price wars with other supermarkets. But, overall prices are going up not down. And, as this story confirms, you'd be better off buying vegetables at a local market, or getting an organic box delivered, than buying at the supermarket. Oh, and buying the right quantities of food, rather than getting sucked in by two-for-one deals and chucking half of it in the bin, will help save pennies. 

Supermarket snub

I have been simmering about supermarkets for quite some time.  My husband's former home town, a market town in Norfolk, had its heart ripped out by Tesco. The third supermarket to claim a patch there, it swallowed up an expanse of land on the edge of the town and dragged custom away from the high street by offering impossibly low prices. Now the high street has become a hollow no man's land in the midst of a supermarket battleground, with little more than charity shops and banks to attract shoppers.  The problem is that people do want low prices and good value, so the lure of super saving deals is hard to argue against.  But, at what cost is the exodus from the high street to the supermarkets? And could the government and local councils do more to protect the interests of independent traders? I am lucky to have a great butcher in my street and I do my best to shop there and at other independent shops. But with a baby to feed and clothe, and prices of everyday groceries rocketing, it's sometimes hard to make good choices. Having succumbed to a daily supermarket shop, I'm starting today with a new goal to gradually cut out the big four (Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Morrisons) out of my life and find alternative outlets that won't break the bank... or batter my conscience. 

Leave that Monkee's Moobs alone!

Poor old Davy Jones committed the heinous crime of exposing his moobs (man-boobs) at a concert recently and caused an uproar. The papers reported that the once youthful heart-throb wasn't a patch on the Cheeky Monkee of the swinging sixties. The guy is 62, so I say give him a break.  I take my hat off to anyone in the limelight that dares to buck the ridiculous trend for Peter Pan celebs who never, never grow old. Frozen faces, bloated lips and crease-free pensioners... it's just so freakish. And, as for the surprise that this teen idol of forty years ago has piled on a few extra pounds with the advancing years, it would be laughable to expect otherwise. One commentator surmised:  "He has let his physique go somewhat through lack of exercise.  He may also have made a few poor food choices." Well, I don't know about anyone else, but when I get to Jones' vintage, I hope that I am enjoying life and relaxing the rules a bit... I'd rather have the odd cream cake and put my feet up now and again, than spend my life on a treadmill, running away from Old Father Time.