I was stranded in London this week by an acute headache (which you get from having a cute head). Not a mile from my pain was a clash of civilisations as the members of the G-20 countries met to decide our fate, and 180 groups of protestors rioted in the street because they felt like it.

In summary: more nonsense per square inch than the planet has ever witnessed. On the one hand were the great and the good. President Obama was among what looked from the official photo like 30 world leaders. Between them, what a mass of incompetence, cheating and worse they represented. The greatest outrage, no doubt accidental, was when Michelle Obama put her arm around the Queen. She touched the monarch! Normally, it would be off with her head, and her husband's too, while we're at it. Best thing for them, really. A Royal pardon must have been issued, however, because the First Lady appears to have retained her head while all around her, everyone else was losing theirs.

The Prez renewed his acquaintance with Gordon Brown, the one-eyed British Prime Minister. The last time they met, Mr. Brown received some DVDs as an official gift, but when he tried to play them, they were from the wrong region and proved useless. This time, President Obama gave a rather better gift: unlimited trillions of dollars to solve all our woes - unless you are our grandchildren, in which case, good luck in the salt mines.

Speaking of which, Russia's President Medvedev was there, but he sensibly left his secret killers behind to murder a few journos and other innocents while the focus was on London. Sr. Berlusconi of Italy was there with his hair plugs, bonhomie, and complete lack of respect for the judicial system. M. Sarkozy flounced in, but did not, as had been threatened, flounce out.

Usually, the best way to find out what to do in any given situation is to ask M. Sarkozy what he'd like to do, and then do the reverse. The little prince and Frau Merkel of Germany are against "quantitative easing", i.e. printing money, and for "quantitative squeezing", in which the unfortunate go to the wall. OK, so a few million lives are ruined, but, hey, life's like that. Sarkozy? I'd rather take advice from a tea cozy.

On the other team, as vile a crew as ever you'll meet, scurvy dogs, the lot of 'em. They were a-marching and a-smashing under the banner of such concepts as "green", "anarchy", "people first" and a horde of other incomprehensible non-platforms for a different future. The unwashed had scored an early victory last weekend, when they attacked the home of Fred Goodwin, an English banker who has come to be the poster boy for greedy greed. He is the British AIG, if you like.

Egged on by denouncements from many world leaders, the nutcase army smashed up his car and his house. His pension is under threat, as is his knighthood. (Just behind Sir Fred in the rogues' gallery is Lord Myners, well-known in these parts, who has suddenly been discovered to be a rotter.)

At the G-20 meeting itself, a few days later, in the most insignificant act of revolution imaginable, 35,000 certified losers broke into a bank branch and ... left. The whole snarling mob, strictly from the age of the tumbril, were boxed in by police officers and spent an unpleasant day unable to go anywhere.

The Police action has become routine every time the barmy army takes to the streets for more everything for everyone, or whatever it is they want. They get boxed in and then have to settle for a mass whine. Pathetic.

The few violent free thinkers were filmed in action, surrounded by a ring of cameramen snapping each wacky thing they did. Their 15 minutes of fame, however, may last no more than that. As one police officer put it, "when we've reviewed the tapes, and know who we're dealing with, we'll choose a time to drop in and say 'hello'."

After the gig, some of the protestors hung out at the Starbucks in tony St. John's Wood. Their ideal world, it seems, includes $5 coffees, expensive running shoes and, of course, Blackberries. But then even the "Big Issue" sales lady outside the Tesco had one of those.

A little after 4 p.m. on Thursday, the world leaders' communiqué dropped into my inbox. I looked first at the tax havens section, because I have friends in Jersey and Switzerland. Predictably, the statement had some fuzzy stuff about transparency and declared an end to banking secrecy. Fat chance. By the time the new laws are written, we'll all have our money in the Talibank or some other part of the world that wasn't represented at the G-20, and wouldn't even be at a G-200 meeting.

Everything has a price, including a spot of secrecy. Ask the great money-launderers such as London and Nevada, apparently. Britain issues bearer shares over the Internet, placing them miles below Bermuda's way, way higher standard. Bearer shares have been banned for some years almost everywhere. Nevada offers free prostitutes with every company formed, or something.

The bad guys are always smarter, quicker and more motivated than the good guys. No amount of pointless meetings in London will change the laws of nature.

The recession is all but done, by the way, which made the G-20 summit even more unnecessary. By "done", I mean that we have seen, or are near to seeing, the bottom, and that the recovery either has begun, or is about to. The stock markets share that view. There's more bad news to come, and a "dead cat bounce" could throw the whole thing into question, but I suspect that most of the worst is behind us ...

... and ahead of those under the age of 20 or as yet unborn. Theirs will be the good fortune of paying for our mistakes by repaying the trillions being pumped around here and there to make things better now. The folly this entails is staggering, but the consensus in London is that print is not dead.

I'm looking forward to returning to Bermuda, where I hear that a coalition of importers, bar-owners and drunks has formed an organisation called Bermuda Thirst. I may have that wrong; I haven't been well.