I have a message for BBC News. We get it. The police hit a lot of people in the face at the G20 protests. I also undertsand that it's generally not OK to hit people with riot shields, push them over just because they deigned to be in front of you and hit them in the legs with batons just because a casual slap across the face didn't work. I get it – now let it go. Nobody got murdered or raped by the police so it's not all bad.

I don't want people to get the wrong end of the stick. I'm all for protesting and direct action as legitimate forms of expression in a liberal democracy. Moreover, we should be debating what would be considered relatively minor points in other, less liberal parts of the world. It's what makes Britain a decent place to live and it provides something for fledgling democracies to live up to.

But I was trying to put my finger on what exactly I found disappointing about the whole G20 protests thing. And I couldn't until the superb Marcus Brigstocke beat me to the punch. The protesters were shit. Really shit. Like horse manure in your food. Unimpressively, ridiculously and quite frankly rudely shit.

What's happened to the concept of civilised protest? Let's look at Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King. These guys knew how to organise a fucking protest. They did nothing except wander around. They didn't scream or shout at the police. That was below them. All they needed was the moral high ground and that was enough for them. Their problem wasn't with the police anyway and so taking it out on them was pointless. They just stood around, quietly refusing to do stuff and that's exactly the way it should be.

I don't even care if I've massively romanticised Gandhi's or King's protests. Peaceful protest should be just that – peaceful. Even if a policeman threatens to hit you with a baton or even cut off your face, you do it the British way. You turn around and say, “well that would be incredibly impolite”, maintain your stiff upper lip (which he admittedly wants to remove from the rest of your body) and stand perfectly still. You don't complain about it. Being hit is part of being a protester.

I'm not by any means siding with the police. “Kettling” people is a clever word for temporary unjustified detention without charge, water, food, toilets or medicine. There's no getting past that. But breaking windows of banks sullies the very name of peaceful protest. These things aren't about shouting and screaming and making loud noises. They're about a number of people making a point; throwing your toys out of the pram in this manner just annoys people. It focuses their attention on the violence rather than the ideals and idealogies of the movement and if that happens, what's the point of your protest other than to identify your cause with unnecessary violence and being annoying pricks?

Truthfully, I don't know what these protests were about. I've heard they were about the evils of capitalism. I've also heard they were about climate change. I've also heard they were about hitting hippies with sticks (all perfectly valid reasons to protest). Whatever. I am severely unimpressed with it all. Chill out, smoke some weed and learn to do this shit properly with calm, dignity and an air of defiance. This was pathetic, violent and poorly directed. The press has to take some blame for concentrating on that violence - the protesters have to take far more.

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