'Hairdressers now find that customers ask them to take haircuts'

THE TV studio looks exciting. It’s clear that busy people work here. The window behind the presenter looks out onto a sea of skyscrapers. This is where the money’s at. The show is starting. Shut up Colm. Men are talking.

I'm watching Breakout, Yahoo.com's market analysis programme.

Jeff Macke is the presenter and his guest is Jay Pestrichelli. Jay plays the stock market and he’s telling Jeff about volatility.

Jeff: “So Jay, whaddya got for me today – who’s the smart money on?”

Jay: “Well I gotta tellya, we’re buying Puts on the ETFs right now.”

Jeff: “Smart move – where’s this gonna be going down?”

Jay: “We’re looking at the Spiders and the QQQQs for upside.”

I have no idea what they’re talking about – but damn, it sounds exciting. When people in American accents start talking their trade-talk, I want to be in that trade. Picture the type of people who buy Puts on the Spiders for upside.

Symmetrical tanned-face men called Lance or Brad. Men who live their lives in a montage: Waving their arms and shouting during the morning, playing highly competitive sports at lunch, high-fiving their colleagues after clinching something big in the evening and spraying the Occupy Wall Street people with champagne on their way home.

There are a number of obstacles to me joining this club; first, they don’t sell Puts in Londis.

There was a time when no one was interested in financial news. When we had loads of money we didn’t care where it came from. Now that we have none, we have become experts on where it went.

Jargon is no longer a mystery. There was a time when “bond yields” meant what 007 did when he approached a road of greater importance.

Securitisation was the sudden appearance of bouncers on the dancefloor when some young lad had too much drink taken. Hedge funds were college fees during the Penal Times.

But such blissful ignorance is no more now.Years of non-stop business news have made economists of us all. The jargon pops up everywhere. Hairdressers are now finding that customers ask them to take haircuts. If someone buys a round now you can opt out when it’s your turn and call it a credit event. I failed the NCT recently because my moral hazard lights were not working.

Of course knowing why things are bad doesn’t make the bad feel any better, but it’s worth reflecting just how much has changed in a year.

You don't see Ireland mentioned on Breakout. Not anymore.

This time last year, Ireland made the front page of Yahoo’s finance news almost every day. There was a macabre pride that our filthy banking system had managed to create a debt mountain with enough zeroes to get noticed by news editors in America – a country that manufactures zeroes.

The IMF were in town and we were the centre of attention.

For a brief time, when I was about seven, I was A Fierce Bold Boy Altogether. I was stroppy at home, and in school I was put outside the door for talking. Word also reached the teachers about some very bad language I’d used.

When you’re behaving badly, even when you try to put things on the straight and narrow, no one believes you. Or things beyond your control go wrong. You want to do your sums and spellings and then your pencil goes missing. Yoghurt spills on your homework. You get caught hitting back even though someone else hit you first. It’s a vicious cycle.

So it was this time last year. Ireland was the Fierce Bold Boy in the class. Even though Greece was technically worse, no one expected any better of them. The family was “a bit rough”. We were the bigger disappointment because our “brother was a grand boy altogether”.

The more we tried to mend our ways, the less anyone believed us. As soon as we tried anything, the markets would blab to all and sundry.

Our parents were called in. The embarrassment was ferocious. What made matters worse was that others were trying to help us. We felt patronised. The teacher asked the Scandinavian to help us out. The goody two-shoes. If Scandinavia went to your school, your mother would never stop talking about them. “Why can’t you be more like Scandinavia. I hear that Scandinavias sister is training to be a doctor.”

What a depressing time to be Irish. To make matters worse, journalists were going where the story was.

You couldn’t walk through the Irish countryside last November without tripping over a foreign news crew filming a ghost estate rising out of the mist or looking to interview the track-suited owner of an urban horse.

But over the year things got a little better. Portugal was put outside the door for misbehaving as well. We didn’t feel so alone. The two of us would lean against the corridor wall watching as Greece set fire to the cloakroom.

And now it seems, we are rehabilitated. Everyone is still unemployed or emigrating but at least Europe thinks we are a good boy again now. Things are a little bit more harmonious in the class. Even Greece seems much happier having dropped down to Foundation Level Maths.

Of course everything depends on one ill-defined omnipotent capricious group: the Markets. Markets get nervous, annoyed, suspicious. We must appease them without quite knowing what they want. They are like Celtic gods and we are throwing a variety of objects into a lake hoping they’ll give us a good harvest.

In 5,000 years’ time will archaeologists unearth the remains of an ECB press release and ponder a possible religious motive?

I’m still intoxicated by the markets and their strange breed of testosterone-fuelled lunatics who get excited by special purpose vehicles and shortselling.

Back on Breakout, Jeff is asking Jay what else he's "liking right now".

“Well I really think that the barrel of oil is on a roll. I’m looking to get crude right now.” Now I’m searching under the stairs looking for something to siphon petrol out of the car. My wife intervenes. “Maybe you should wait this one out.”

She’s right. I’ll just go hide in the hedge.

The Kilkenomics comedy and economics festival starts tomorrow in Kilkenny.

Colm O’Regan appears from November 3 to November 7. See kilkenomics.com for details