Numbers was what got talked about this G20. Maybe it's because when you talk about numbers you don't have to talk about individuals and their lives, but leave that whole issue for another time. These numbers were big, like 10 million extra children facing starvation, or how about 1.1 trillion non-existent dollars that governments have lent themselves (sound scarily familiar?) to survive the crisis. Put that into perspective, there's 'only' 100 billion stars in our galaxy, so you can't even call it 'astronomical' anymore – I guess we're going to need to find a new word. The scariest numbers were the small ones though, like 6; that represents half a dozen years until 2015, the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals, and when we start hitting some seriously bad climate change tipping points.

Of course, when it's convenient, the weight of numbers gets ignored. 35,000 people came and gave up their weekend, on a Saturday (March 28th, at the first of the many G20 demos) with showers and hail just battering us the whole time, to demand jobs, justice, and climate, in a completely peaceful march full of colour and music and positivity. As if that's going to be the story! No, what people really need to know about, according to the media, were the two thugs at the G20 (being egged on by the 200 journalists surrounding them) giving full-on mindless vandalism the press had been gagging for.

So how do you tell people what's the real deal when an instant media poll said 69% of the public agreed that "anti-capitalist protestors did their cause more harm than good?" Someone said to me when I got back into work from my 'riot' of a lunch-break: "What's the point? What are you protesting about, what do you want, and aren't you just getting people annoyed at you..." I defended the demonstrators, and said the real work gets done in the months before and after the actual summit by activists and ordinary volunteers. But if we're going talk about percentages of the public, let's be realistic – we fight, we protest, we shout for the percentage who do give two s**ts about the state we are in. The few who turned up for a quick grab do not represent what the thousands proudly stood up for.

Which is why we have to worry about perception at the same time as activism. No way should we agonise about what stories get told about us, that'll just sink us into timid apathy, but on our side, we can't let 'fighting the good fight' obscure the need to reflect, and explain ourselves (and condemn extremists).

So, getting back to numbers, just by law of averages, on any given day, if you get 5,000 demonstrators, some of them rebel-without-a-cause vandalising brats, if you get 5,000 police, some of them truncheon-happy blockheads - couldn't we have just designated a 'riot kettle' space (preferably out in Essex or somewhere) for the bad apples to get their hands all over each other, give the sensationalist press something to fill their front pages with, and let the rest of us get down to the real work.

Photo - http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/francis/archive/2009/04/02/g20-thugs-underscore-anger.aspx