When's this summer of rage due to start then? You may remember - think back to those short, dark days of February - the headline in the Guardian announcing that our police were preparing for a "Summer of Rage". Yup, we were all going to be so angry about the banks, and the politicians, and the, you know, generally poor state of the world, that police were expecting us to riot in the streets. This was going to be the year of revolution, when the old orders were finally overturned and a newer, better world invented. But actually, it's strangely quiet out there.

Yes, I know that Iran is close to revolution - but here, though the activists are doing their best to get us going, most of us seem to be just, erm, staying home. Plane Stupid invaded the Virgin birthday party last week, Climate Rush chained themselves to a ministry a couple of weeks ago, Greenpeace have been jumping on coal delivery ships, protesters up in Scotland have taken over a small woodland and vowed to stop the coal company digging there...But where's the support?

Where are the streams of people going to join them? I have to admit that even I - who can never normally resist a good bit of action - just can't be bothered to turn up. Why? Why this sudden outbreak of lethargy?

It's partly the weather - Who can be bothered to have a good rebellion when they could be sunbathing? You know that if it had been like this - these long days of sultry, soaking sunshine - when the French revolution was getting going, all the peasants would have been all "yez, burt, ah've just got des amis coming round for ze barbeque, can we chop ze 'eads off tomorrow instead?"And the Russian revolution would have been delayed, because "I've just got de beer keg in de fridge, and Nikolai and Annastasia are putting up a limbo pole at the dacha."

But it's also typical of the British. Somehow, ever since the English Civil war, we're out of the revolutionary habit. At the end of the eighteenth century and then in the middle of the nineteenth, while the whole of Europe was going up in flames, the British sipped tea. We're just not an angry sort of nation - we're more of a complaining sort of nation. Australian joke: How do you know when a planeful of Poms has landed? The engines switch off but the whining carries on.

Is it because we have such a wonderful country, everything in order? Clearly not. In a perfect country the bankers would earn the minimum wage, women would make up half the cabinet, there would be no-one below the poverty line and it would always be sunny for Glastonbury.

But maybe because, at some level, we've accepted that it's never really going to be perfect, maybe that's the advantage of being an old country...you start to get pretty realistic about the world we live in. We can change the world slowly, we can rub away at rough corners and try to improve things bit by bit. It's an imperfect place, and it's always going to stay that way. But when you get a bit of sunshine, a quiet spot to sit, a chilled moment with your friends, it doesn't seem so bad. It's as good as a revolution any day.

summerofrage.info