The recent German IFO manufacturing index dealt a blow to anyone who thought that European economies might be weathering the storm. Traders had anticipated a fall to around 88 from August's level of 89.5 - not great news in itself - but the actual number, coming in at 85, was utterly appalling. While the newspapers are still full of war stories, dealers are beginning to look at economic stories again and they don't like this one.

It records the index's largest monthly fall since 1973 and to its lowest level since November 1993. The upshot is that European recession fears now loom large in people's minds even though the president of the Bundesbank, Ernst Welteke, seems convinced that recession isn't on the cards (despite admitting that Germany would be lucky to achieve growth levels of 0.75 per cent this year).

At the same time, the European Central Bank's (ECB's) chief economist, Otmar Issing, once again stressed the importance of price stability and said that monetary policy should be an anchor for expectations.

An anchor is all very well but Europe doesn't actually need to be anchored at the moment, a little bit of forward momentum would help a lot.

Most dealers still find the mindset of the ECB difficult to contend with - another ECB member, Sirkka Hamalainen, recently underlined the proactive nature of the ECB by pointing out that it had cut rates by 100 basis points this year. Given the kind of year that we've had, many of us might feel that it's hardly worth getting out of bed for 100 basis points.

Still, as she also pointed out, the ECB employs 180 economists and they can't all be wrong. (Obviously, my view is that of course they can all be wrong. Afterwards they'll bring out a rain-forest of analysis telling us why. I do so love economics!)

Despite this gloomy outlook for Europe, and the fact that many of us at home are feeling increasingly gloomy too, the anecdotal evidence is still pointing to consumers who are prepared to take out their credit cards and go for it. I base this on the entirely unscientific method of going to Blanchardstown Shopping Centre last Sunday.

One of the pleasures of my current working environment is that trips to retail emporia don't have to be made on Saturdays or Sundays. Usually if I want to add some money to the economy I do it early in the week when the shops are quiet and parking is more than just a distant fantasy.

However, things don't always work out like that and the man and I found ourselves pouncing on an unexpected parking space on Sunday afternoon with all the energy of a cruise missile locating its objective. (Regular visitors to Blanchardstown Shopping Centre are no doubt aware that arriving on Sunday afternoon hoping to get a parking space is naive in any event.) We did the things we had to do and emerged again only to realise that the queues of cars were even longer and that going home was almost impossible.

We thought about getting something to eat but every restaurant had hordes of people just waiting to get inside with the prospect of an hour's wait before sitting at a table. The man, at this stage fainting from hunger, was having none of it. We plunged into the traffic jam and took our chances, although it was all very reminiscent of getting out of the IFSC car park at 5 p.m.

There is no way anyone would go through the Blanchardstown experience and not spend money. If you're going to spend hours getting there, hours looking for parking and hours getting home again, the very least you want is to load up the car with purchases to make it seem worthwhile.

I'm now wondering if my feeling about a slowdown in the Irish economy was solely based on the fact that the shops are much, much quieter on Mondays.

Which is more than can be said for my internet service provider. When I signed up a couple of years ago I decided to go for a paying package so that (as they told me at the time) I wouldn't experience the problem of not being able to connect owing to too many people trying to access the premium dial-up number.

That might have been the case then but it's certainly not the case now. Whenever I dial up and get a message that I can't be connected, I ring technical support to find out if there's anything wrong with their lines. I do this because I once spent ages reconfiguring my dial- up settings at the behest of a technical support guy only to discover afterwards that they were having problems themselves and it was nothing to do with me. I've now discovered it's never anything to do with me, it's "congestion".

So much for the technological hub that is Ireland. I lost my temper on Monday when, after spending an hour letting the PC dial away fruitlessly, I rang tech support and asked to speak to a customer services person, was transferred to the speaking voice who told me my call would be answered in rotation (five minutes and counting) and was then referred back to tech support.

Eventually I spoke to someone who told me, contritely, that my premium number was now being accessed by hundreds of thousands of people and that they were desperately trying to get new lines but that the whole thing was bogged down between two companies and the courts.

He wasn't able (or maybe willing) to tell me any more, but the bottom line is that Ireland might want to be online but, more often than not, it's currently offline and it's all somebody else's fault.

I've taken very little interest in the various phone company disasters over the past couple of years since there's only so much you can read in despair but, given that we're apparently the only economy in Europe that still has any growth potential, you'd imagine that we'd have hauled ourselves out of the telephone technology stone age by now.

Since even thinking about it makes my blood pressure rise, I won't get started on the pipe-dream that is an affordable, connectable, high-speed line.

Actually, now that I think about it, high-speed whether by phone or by car, hasn't exactly been a feature of my life lately.