I try to guard against optimism in general, but having spent the last three days and nights occupying central London, I must admit to feeling a little cheery.

We met at the London stock exchange and, after failing to occupy Paternoster Square, we moved a few yards to the front of St. Paul’s Cathedral. A constant stream of cameras filed past to snap my twins, grinning, politicised, and loving the limelight. Julian Assange said a few words, and people shouted through megaphones, but the police were better organised than us, and stormed in after a few hours to make a line in front of the cathedral pillars.

They took shifts to hold the line all night. On Sunday morning the canon arrived for mass, saying that he had no problem with the protesters, their signs and their tents, but he’d like the police to leave the steps. They said they were there to protect the pillars, and the canon replied that the pillars seemed alright. He didn’t mention that they had survived three centuries and two world wars, but the police filed out all the same, with neither warrant nor permission to stay.

I was in my robes, of course, and you can imagine my delight when a chap from the Socialist Worker Party asked me if St. Paul’s would open for mass. I took the opportunity for some guerrilla evangelism, gave the poor atheist a few crumbs from the Lord’s table, so to speak, and instructed him on the subversive subtext concealed within the turning of the other cheek.

The camp grew over the next few days, with tarps tied, a library popping up, lectures and workshops organised, and the kitchen collecting a huge amount of food from donations and from skips. A few tents took off in the wind, but we tied them to drains, pillars, water bottles, church windows and each other, and a kitchen marquee arrived and went up on Monday, just hours before the first rain fell. Amongst the occupiers, tourists and passers-by, there were suits from the stock exchange. A few shouted abuse, most just milled about, but one or two went on camera to vent their fury about mismanagement of the economy.

How long we will stay depends to a large degree on how long the canon remains happy with us, but winter is coming in hard and Dale Farm is being forcibly cleared of its residents. We might expect some very angry people to join us fresh from their eviction.

For the time being, however, things are cool, and there are protests in progress all around the world. Like many men and most bankers, I take pleasure in large numbers, so scenes of civil disorder from 1000 cities give me cause for uncharacteristic optimism.

Come down if you can make it.

And bring some hot water bottles!