These anti-capitalists supposedly descending on London, I think they owe us an apology. You see, I was reading something by one of them in The Guardian. “Ten years ago,” she wrote, quite loftily, “the anti-capitalist movement predicted this recession.” Blimey, I thought. Couldn't they have told the rest of us?

There are predictions and predictions, mind you. I used to have a colleague at a gossip website who specialised in made-up stories about celebrities being pregnant. “It's not not true,” he'd insist, “it's just not true yet.” If, months or years later, it became true, he'd be visibly smug. You can get something right, is my point, and still have been wrong.

Still, let's give them the benefit of the doubt. Let's look beyond the hemp clothes and nasty piercings, and accept that, unlike all the experts, the anti-capitalist movement saw it coming, all along. Yeah? Well thanks a bunch, guys. Thanks for sitting on your hands.

“But we didn't!” they'd cry. “We gave a Winston Churchill statue a mohican made out of turf? And we smashed up the odd burger franchise! We had riots! Remember the riots? Literally tens of people were slightly hurt! We turned over cars, broke windows, waved banners! What more could we have done?”

Um, formulated a coherent argument? Proposed some sort of feasible alternative to the world economy, instead of just bitching about it and blowing your bloody whistles? Founded some sort of electable party, run for office and changed the structures of global eco-politics from the inside out? Something like that?

Sure, we all could have done more. Borrowed less. Shopped more ethically. Actually finished something written by George Monbiot. Only, we didn't see the writing on the wall, like you did. We didn't have your clarity of purpose. All these years ago you saw the problem, and since then you've... what? Made some fair-trade chocolate hash brownies when Siobhan organised a face-painting collective at Climate Camp?

Here's what the lady in the other newspaper said about the anti-capitalism movement: “It was wild, infuriating, diverse and sometimes incoherent, as only a network that encompasses indigenous peoples, radical environmentalists, workers and kids in hoodies could be. The movement was like the child in the crowd as the emperor of global neoliberalism wheeled by, pointing out that his cloaks were woven from financial fictions and economic voodoo.”

Some paragraph, that. But I don't remember anybody saying that capitalism was a fiction. Not ever. I just remember them saying it was nasty. There used to be a banner you'd see at the May Day London nonsense, or any other demo with a vaguely anti-globalisation theme. “SMASH CAPITALISM,” it said, “AND REPLACE IT WITH SOMETHING NICER”.

You'd think, by now, they might have figured out what that something could be. I'm sure there were big ideas. Maybe even some good ideas. Only, they just left us all thinking that any alternative to capitalism would involve kicking in McDonald's and giving Churchill a mohican. They were a part of the argument, just like the Government and the banks, and they failed, too. You'd think they might be a bit humble about that. It's a wonder nobody puts their windows out and smashes up their cars.

Rules is rules

My friend, let's call her Peggy, has a baby. It's a good baby. It doesn't do any of the nasty things that babies so often do, such as tactically deploying faeces or vomiting pea soup, or muttering Latin into the baby monitor. It eats, it sleeps. So, quite often in the afternoon, she'll take it to the cinema.

The other week, she's in there to see Slumdog Millionaire. Buys her tickets, trots up to the screen. “No,” says the Munster with the torch, and gets all Gandalf. She shall not pass. “But we're here every other day,” says Peggy. “Not to see this film, you're not,” says the Munster. “Why?” says Peggy. “Is your child over 15?” “She's nine weeks,” says Peggy. “Well then,” says the Munster, “it's the law.” And he sends here away. Bit odd. No?

Life's a beach

Off to Brighton on Wednesday morning, to interview a chap about a play. I thought I knew Brighton fairly well, but I was wrong. I'd never visited the city on a weekday before. I took a walk down to the beach. On my stag, two years ago, I sunbathed there and got drunk. Now there was a guy with a metal detector, some kids on skateboards and two tramps with a guitar. Nobody else.

You know that bit in Quadrophenia when Phil Daniels goes back to Brighton after a Bank Holiday, and it's all cold and windy and empty, like your front garden at four in the morning? That was how it felt. After a while, I noticed that the kids on the skateboards were older than me, and guys with the guitar were artfully dishevelled, rather than trampishly so. Traditionally, people moved to Brighton because they were getting old. These days, I wonder if they do it to pretend that they're not.

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