It’s time to talk to the future. What should we put in a time capsule to explain life in Ireland 2011 to alien visitors?

1: German Dictionary

Remember when Germany was over there, in the middle of Europe, making up for a dodgy past with Kraftwerk and not minding too much if you did a goosestep in front of them for a cheap laugh. It was popular with Irish visitors because our old 5 pence piece could work as 1 mark in their vending machines. That and the fact that their public transport operates on the honour system, which translates into Irish as Jesus lads, it’s free.

Best of all, the Munich Beer festival allowed Paddy, Mick, Donal, Fiachra and Saoimhe to give their livers an annual pasting in an atmosphere where it’s actually compulsory to drink your head off. It would be guilt free drinking if we Irish weren’t prone to wake up the next morning with “Stop the lights, I just remembered I told the blondie one from Heidelberg I was related to Bono and Enya. I feel awful. About everything.”

If you met a German 10 years ago in a far off country, it was customary to buy him a drink and say thanks for the motorways, Dieter. At this point Dieter would laugh and say ‘you crazy Irish’. Dieter is still saying you crazy Irish in 2011, but there isn’t any sign of a laugh. The Germans are no longer over there. They’re over here.

You don’t see them. You just sense them. Every time a senior politician is asked a question these days and he starts in to his gobbledygook answer, you can almost hear him thinking the real answer: I’ll have to check with Dieter.

Here’s the weird truth. In public, we Irish have to pretend this is a shocking invasion. We show our anger  by substituting V for W in everything and doing a goosestep for a cheap laugh. The Irish Times even abandoned its retired Colonel from Greystones constituency and demanded to know how this would play out with the men of 1916.

In private, we’re delighted that Dieter is in town. When we weren’t dodging ticket inspectors on the Munich U-Bahn, we had time to notice that the trains ran on time, that there were lots of them and that if there was somebody conked out from booze with a splash of vomit on his shirt, he was probably one of us. Germany works.

Put Angela Merkel, Brian Cowen and Enda Kenny in front of use for a vote-off and there is one thing for certain. We would turn to Dieter and say take us to your leader. Bitte.

2: A Rabobank Sign

Rabobank was a kind of an oddity when it came out first. It had jaunty radio ads with no sneaky stuff and seemed aimed at people in skinny jeans, Converse runners and Inspector Gadget t-shirts who played ping-pong with each other all day in the foyer at Google when they should have been writing software that pries into our private lives.

To make it more exotic, Rabo lived on the internet. And it was openly Dutch, who are far as we can make out are tall arrogant people who didn’t mind a bit of porn when they were high, which is always. Like, why would we possibly need a Dutch bank? Our banks are the envy of the world.

Things change. Along with other foreign banks, Rabobank has replaced property as a conversation topic at an Irish dinner party. It’s usually done by that smug couple who are both in love with David McWilliams (you know the couple, every table has one). Let’s call them the EconoCouple

As far the EconoCouple are concerned, the purpose of a dinner party is to scare the economic shit out of people who don’t hang off every word that comes from McWilliams. These days, they let Rabobank do the scaring. It’s always the same introduction.

“Oh, we moved all our money out to Rabo last year.” Fionn will probably squeeze Roisin’s hand at this point to remind each other how much better they are at everyone else.

Poor Donal across the table will fall for the bait. “But what about the bank guarantee?” Roisin looks at him as if he was four years old. “Donal, the government is bust. They couldn’t guarantee a loan for myself and Fionn’s new tandem.”

Fionnula, Donal’s wife, who lives life on the verge of a nervous breakdown shrieks “Is that true, Donal?  Because we better transfer out the 800 grand that Mammy gave us after selling the field.”

At this point dinner host Padraig shouts “stop this crazy talk lads or ye’ll start a run on the banks” and Fionnula changes tack with “oh Jesus Donal, do you think we might start a run on the banks.”

Donal buries his head in his hands and thinks that’s the last time I marry for money.

So talk about Rabobank if you must.  Just be careful how you go.

3: 2011 Number Plate

The Celtic Tiger rule of buy the newest and most expensive car you can, as often as you can, is now gone. It’s replaced by a far simpler rule. Don’t show your wealth.

The great dirty secret of Ireland in 2011 is that there a lot of people who made money in the good times who can’t spend it now. Never mind that the economy would start to pick up if they went to the shops; or that there has never been better value. The official story is that we’re all in this together and anybody who puts their credit card above the parapet will discover that Irish begrudgery never went away.

This is particularly true of cars. Motor dealers will pretty much throw in a bikini-clad Irish model these days to drape across any new car you buy from them. But driving around in 2011 car these days, without or without your complimentary Irish model, is a dodgy business.

The escalating road rage in this country, which is much worse since so many people gave up smoking, will now be directed at you. The mere sight of the number 11 will drive a certain type of motorist bananas. They’ll be straight onto Liveline with “I’ve just seen another 2011 car Joe, I thought we were all supposed to be in this together. This place is gone to the dogs.”

It not just the year that matters. The Irish number-plate also gives you a county to help pigeon-hole the driver in front. This is a big problem for culchies. It is widely accepted in urban Ireland that every culchie made a quick million selling a few acres to gullible city folk during the good times.

So if you do splash out on a Range Rover with a 11 TN reg, make sure you  also get a backup banger with an 07 D reg in case you ever need to go into Dublin. Just ask the salesman, he’ll probably give you one for free.

Or, seeing as you’re spending that much on a new motor, why not also splash out on a set of vanity plates. We’re not talking about 1 1S GR8 here, unless you’re Stephen Ireland. No, if you really want a new car smell that much, replace the 11 plates with a vanity set that looks just a normal plate, with reg like say 07 D 22222. It will be well worth it when you head into Dublin to stock up in Brown Thomas.

4: An Early Bird Menu

If you arrived in Ireland from Mars on a wet Tuesday night and took a walk around one of our cities, you could only come to one conclusion. These people are rich. Or French. How else could you explain the fact that restaurants are full of people who are not just eating food, they are also drinking wine? There’s sophistication for you.

There was a time when the only place an Irish person could be seen midweek in public drinking wine was at an art gallery opening. It was accepted that you might need something to ease the pain. It was medicinal. However, midweek wine in public outside a room full of men with ponytails who love the word wonderful was a clear sign you were an alcoholic. Could you not wait until Friday or Saturday night where a bottle of vodka, four Slippery Nipples and three pints of cider is what’s known in Ireland as a well-earned drink?

The Early Bird phenomenon has changed all that. 19 is now the magic number in Irish social life. After Celtic Tiger years of €45 steaks, it now seems that every restaurant in the country can do the midweek magic for €19. That gets you a two course meal and a glass of wine. That’s enough to get us out of the house once a month.

The Early Bird phenomenon started badly. Back in 2008, when we were obviously up shit’s creek but still thought we had a paddle, a few places offered us a three course meal for 19 euro between 5:30 and 6 on a Tuesday evening, as long as you don’t mind eating your dinner in the jacks and are not to kind of person to go you must be fucking joking me when the waiter Pavel nervously explains that tea or coffee is the third course.

That’s gone. It’s two courses these days, all night, and we’ll even let you to sit out in the restaurant proper. The two course meal fits in nicely with the new spirit in Cutbacks Ireland. Not to mention the fact that putting away a sticky toffee pudding and a cappuccino after garlic mushrooms and a carbonara on a Tuesday night is a form of savagery. What do you think you are? American.

Best of all, the Early Bird has thought us how to drink. Because one glass of wine is now included in your €19, we have discovered that it is possible to have a Tuesday night  tipple and not wind up like Fr. Jack. Now, that’s mad.

5: A Boomerang

The most familiar sight on television these days is of a jaded looking student at Dublin airport telling Primetime that all his friends have gone to Australia. Without him. We all had a guy like that in our class. Trust me mate, they’ll be hiding  behind the couch when you ring the bell at their place near Bondi beach.

As we know, emigration is the worst thing that can happen to anyone.  It’s official. So when we look at these boys and girls who staggered out of college after four years of sex and happy hours, and are now being forced to go to the other side of the world to drink and have sex in the sunshine down under, we’re supposed to feel sorry for them.

Come on. It’s impossible to feel sorry for anybody moving to Oz. All they’re giving up is the need to wear socks, be politically correct and use a g at the end of most words, particularly in the mornin’. They’ve only got to survive out there long enough for us at home to conjure up the next crazy bubble that brings home our poor put upon emigrants and employs half of eastern Europe. We’ve shown some form in that area recently. So, no worries.

6: Taxi Plates

You know the way with taxis. None come around for fifteen years and suddenly three and a half thousand pass by at once.

Ireland 2011 offers two types of taxi rides. The first is white, where your Irish taxi driver tells you he has to drive eight taxis at once for two thousand hours a week to make a living and that’s only possible due to his chain of chip vans and the missus does a bit of hairdressing. You want to ask the obvious question – why don’t you quit – but you’re worried that he’ll give up with immediate effect and leave you at the side of the road. Don’t worry about that. There’s probably three empty taxis following him around in the hope that you get thrown out for saying you never listen to Joe Duffy. Just hop out and flag down of them.

There might be a more politically correct way to describe the other type of taxi in Ireland, but let’s face it, it’s a black taxi. The driver is from Africa and couldn’t care less how many taxis there are on the road, he’s just glad to get a fare. A certain breed of middle class Irish person turns into a nervous wreck when they take a ride with an African. Fiachra, Oisin and Chloe look down on native taxi-drivers for listening to Liveline while wearing a moustache.  But when their driver has darker skin, it becomes like an Irish episode of Seinfeld. You could call it Seinfield.

“Oh my God, so like where do you come from?” “Nigeria.”  “Ok, let me just like totally say the following. I am so not thinking about fraudulent emails purporting to come from the son of the former Nigerian Minister for Commerce and Sport right now.  Like, you know, the vast majority of Irish people in 1980s London weren’t in the IRA, unless they’d had a few pints. Do you not what I mean?” “Not really.” “Let me put it another way.   My cousin is going out with a Liberian guy and like I know that’s a bit like you establishing your credentials by saying you’re going out with a Bulgarian, but like, it’s so better than nothing. You dig?” “Did you just say ‘you dig’.” “I like so did,” You Irish are hilarious.” “Ya, but not in a racist way, right? And let me just add I have nothing against Bulgarians. Three of my last four cleaners came from that neck of the woods – incredible attention to detail.”

7: A bottle of Bling H2O

Consider the people who open your time capsule. You don’t just want to show them how we Irish lived in 2011; it would be nice to pass on something that we’ve learned along the way. Forget about a note   saying “property prices don’t always have to go up”. We haven’t really learned that lesson. If you are the kind of person who believes we’ve inflated our last property bubble, then have I got a ghost estate outside Mullingar for you. Seriously, there’s never been a better time to get into property.

No, what’s needed here is a totem of craziness. This is where a bottle of Bling H2O comes in. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it. Paris Hilton liked it apparently. It’s a Swarovski encrusted bottle of water launched here in mid-2008 for €45. People bought it. We’ve relegated it to the nether regions of our memories in Ireland because if you think about it for too long, your head will explode.

The bottle of Bling  sends a clear message to our friends from the future.  When people around you start taking the piss out of money, it’s time to do a legger. They say Australia is nice.

8: Ski Poles

The abiding image of the recent cold weather was of Irish people making their way around town using ski poles. Some of them wore full ski-suits. That’s new.

Boomtime Paddy took to skiing trips because he could drink Jagermeister until two in the morning and wipe out his hangover the next morning with a quick fall down the mountain.

Our new found fascination with skiing brought about a bizarre annual migration of middle class Ireland from its usual supermarket. It was like watching a documentary where the pink flamingos who usually hang around one pond of filthy water suddenly decide to hang around another pond of filthy water and the awestruck David Attenborough voice says “we will probably never understand why.”

The why in our case was that Lidl and Aldi just  got their skiing gear in. Traolach and Katie, who normally got a nosebleed if they leave M&S or Superquinn, suddenly found themselves in aisle 3 of Lidl tearing strips off their neighbours to lay hands on the last ski suit in a medium while trying to say “you know, I normally wouldn’t be seen dead in this place.”

Of course a lot of people can’t afford the Alps these days.  Thankfully, the country seems to have moved to the Arctic Circle so Traolach and Katie get to take their ski gear out of the attic for some domestic use. And let’s face it, also give a nice little coded mesasge: “Look at me. I’m no stranger to the slopes.”

9: Walking Boots

For a certain generation of Irish urban dwellers, the countryside was a place you drove through on the way to your luxury spa destination weekend break, including one free treatment and dinner on a night of your choice in our exclusive restaurant, Cash.

These days, the countryside is the destination. Paddy reckons that seeing as he owns most of the Irish countryside through NAMA, he might as well make the most of it.  So you can’t move around Ireland these days without bumping into groups of jolly walking types agreeing that this would be the nicest country in the world if we only had the weather.

It isn’t just that there are more people rambling around. The modern Paddy can’t be seen roaming across a bog these days unless he is wearing the right gear. Enter our old friends, the German supermarkets, with everything you need for a ramble and some other stuff like an electric guitar or a cement mixer. Try and not buy them.

Walking gear is a big change. There was a time when you’d meet a couple half way up Croagh Patrick, him in a shirt and tie with a pair of slip on brogues, her in a scarf to protect her hair, an anorak tied around her waist and pair of sandals. They’d obviously been out for the classic Irish spin around Westport and decided shag it Maura, let’s climb a mountain.

That’s gone. Anything short of a satellite navigation system, ultra-light microfibres and footwear designed by NASA will put you at the mercy of the elements as you climb Killiney hill on a sunny Sunday afternoon.

10: A pub

Finally, a quick tribute to the Irish pub as it heads into decline. Paddy has been lured into his own living room by mountains of cheap lager at the local supermarket. He can no longer afford to head to the pub with his wife Margaret every Tuesday for two hours, where the entire conversation was Paddy saying ‘tis be God; when Margaret said ‘it’s grand to get out for a while and have a chat’. The rest of the time was spent looking at the telly.

They do this at home now for €5, where the entire conversation is Paddy saying ‘you would alright’ when Margaret says ‘you’d miss the crack in the pub.’