THESE THINGS SHALL BE, UNFORTUNATELY

Dominic Lawson reveals

the twenty ways of spotting when a recession has arrived

THE Sun newspaper has brilliantly reha- bilitated that old journalistic device, `Twenty Things You Didn't Know Ab- out. . .' Now The Spectator plagiarises the plagiarisers, with Twenty Things You Didn't Know Happened In A Recession. There is a quiz element. Some of these have already happened, in Britain, in 1989. The others just might happen in 1990. Turn to page 18 to see which are facts, and which prognostications.

1. A Treasury spokesman tells the Sun- day Telegraph's political editor, writing a story about the pound and the currency market: 'When writing this story you do need to bear in mind that you are a citizen of the UK as well as a journalist. It is a time to be measured and careful.'

2. Brand new flats in the Docklands are taken over by the council, because there aren't enough young upwardly mobile peo- ple to buy them. Remember, Harlem in New York was originally developed for the well-to-do. Then came the Wall Street crash. . . .

3. There is a rush for gold, and for the first time since many traders can remem- ber, the price breaks through $400 an ounce.

4. The New Year high street sales start before Christmas. Even Marks and Spencer has cut its prices.

5. There are as many property page small ads seeking lodgers as there are for buyers. All prospective lodgers capable of intelligent conversation are quickly snap- ped up.

6. Life peerages awarded to businessmen all go to bankers. There aren't any indus- trialists doing well enough and besides, the bankers own the assets.

7. There is a marked increase in the number of those filling in the football pools coupons and purchasing premium bonds. Normal methods of speculative investment seem much less safe.

8. Except . . there is a rush to buy shares in London International, owners of the London Rubber Company, as dealers anticipate a trend towards smaller families: 2.4 sets of school fees are already more than enough for the average middle-class household.

9. Stock in Oxfam shops gets dangerous- ly low as hand-me-down clothes are actual- ly worn by those to whom they are handed down. Standard excuse: 'They just don't make clothes like this any more, you know.'

10. Attendance at College Feasts and Gaudies rises to unprecedented levels. Who knows what old friendships might deliver?

11. Sales of blank audio- and video- cassettes increase, and video rental shops begin to disappear.

12. The whizz kids become 'was kids'. The biggest flops on the stock market are all the business heroes of the past decade: Alan Sugar, the brothers Saatchi, Terence Conran, Sophie Mirman, George Davis etc etc.

13. Security guards start cooking Sunday roasts in the kitchens of deserted and unvisited show houses.

14. The Prime Minister is seen in Britain less and less often, preferring to spend her time on more and more foreign trips.

15. There is a revival in the fortunes of football teams from the industrial heart- land. Reason: more spectators at the mid- week game, and more keen young appren- tices at the clubs.

16. Middle-class housewives start buying supermarket own brand cornflakes. Hus- bands pretend not to notice.

17. Sales of second-hand refrigerators increase, as buyers persuade themselves that the imminent death of the ozone layer has been greatly exaggerated.

18. In London there is an exodus of homeless families from bed and breakfast hotels, because the city's landlords decide that since they cannot sell their empty houses they might as well lease the prop- erties to the town halls.

19. Shareholders receive company annual reports covering the financial year to April 1989, containing remarks from the chairman along the lines of, 'After a very successful year your company wants to expand its borrowing powers to finance the installation of new capacity so as to meet the anticipated continued strong demand.'

20. London cab-drivers take you where you want to go, even outside the West End.

Answers

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