Robert McNeil: You say you want a revolution, well, let's start with some stouter rope at Homebase

In Greece, hopeful slogans about "The Coming Insurrection" hint at a wider agenda, with the stultifying capitalist economy overcome and replaced with something more allotment-based. At night, the protesters gather round campfires, but it's a brave man who would stand up there and try to sing "ging gang goolie goolie goolie goolie watcha ging gang goo". No, the tenor of the discussions is more about revolutionary change and that sort of thing.

However, you can bet your bottom ten pence that, even now, the whole enterprise will be collapsing under the weight of its own jealousies and internal tensions. Soon, someone will have to take command of the situation. And, lo, they will be back to square one: authority. Young people are just old people who can remember where they are. They are doomed to commit all the same old mistakes.

In this country, campaigners against aeroplanes have been hitting the headlines, though their tactics are more genteel than those of the heat-crazed hotheads abroad. Activists from Plane Stupid Scotland unfurled a banner at the controversial Scott Monument in Edinburgh. Unfortunately, they made the crucial tactical error of flying their banner with rope bought at Homebase and, not unnaturally, the rope snapped. The protest was halted after ten seconds. Still, they got at least one point across: they found something at Homebase, which is more than I've ever done.

As usual, academic commentators are hoping such protests will herald a return to the halcyon days of the 1960s, when we were all looked after by the state and the trade unions. Even critics of that sweet, colourful decade are reviewing their stances. Professor Gerard de Groot, for example, wept on his podium when he recanted his previous cynicism towards the 1960s. He said the current recession validates the irritation of the old protesters at the shallowness of the consumer capitalist dream. "What was wrong with the 1960s was maybe they were a little too early," he concluded.

This could be correct or, alternatively, incorrect. Certainly, the 1970s, 80s and 90s were all awful, as has been this decade so far. The 1930s and 40s were also dreadful. So, the 1960s may have been a blip out of time. The 50s were different. No-one had any freedom then, but they were happy and could go out at night without locking their doors. They didn't have anything worth stealing.

One elderly lady fainted and two had to be rescued from The Crags, Edinburgh, after seeing photos of Prince William with a beard.

The future inheritor of Britainshire had appended the disgraceful fuzz to his phizog before going forth to battle heroically against the fearsome pheasant, using only metal and bullets against the mighty feather-based force of nature.

~ more... ~