Workers have been demonstrating in Greece again over the Government’s severe economic measures and, unless I’m very much mistaken, the British press is reporting developments in a rather sneery tone. The subtext seems to be this: get a grip; you’re in economic trouble, just embrace the cuts, for God’s sake; battering bank fronts with sticks won’t help. And you could say that we Brits have the right to be aloof: after all, our three main parties are committed to repairing the public finances and we’re facing similar cutbacks with characteristic stoicism.

Except we’re not. We may not be smashing up bus stops, but we seem to have developed a penchant for the passive aggressive equivalent: online petitions and Facebook groups. In the past week I’ve been asked to join no less than eight groups campaigning to “save” everything from a casualty department to teachers’ employment benefits and a radio station (“Save The BBC Asian Network. Mark Thompson, Your [sic] Wrong”)

It’s not just the bad spelling that annoys. These groups also create the impression that people do not understand the need to sort out the nation’s finances. Forecasts from the IMF show that the deficit in 2010 will be 13.2 per cent of GDP, the highest in the G20 group of big countries, and I think most people want the problem tackled, despite the pain.

These groups also create the impression that all causes are equally worth supporting, when they’re not. in an ideal world we’d save everything. But in an ideal world Piers Morgan wouldn’t be a TV personality and I’d sing like Gil Scott- Heron. The fact is that the closure of a psychiatric unit matters more than painting classes for senior citizens and there’s only one online petition I want to put my name to: an online petition against online petitions.

The Bank of England is so concerned about the rarity of £5 notes and the battered state of fivers that it is, according to reports, examining ways to refill the nation’s tills and wallets with crisper, newer notes. A move that, given the decreasing use of cash and the rising popularity of credit and debit cards, is entirely pointless. Indeed, I witnessed just how irrelevant cash is becoming in a North London branch of Marks & Spencer yesterday when an elderly lady caused mass tutting, sighing and eye-rolling in the long queue behind her by producing a £20 note at the end of her shop.

There was a time when the most infuriating thing you could do at the front of a checkout queue, short of chatting to the checkout assistant, was to produce a cheque or credit card, because it meant minutes of faffing around with signatures and forms. Now credit cards are so easy to use, cash seems very complicated. If the Bank of England really wanted to help us, it would withdraw fivers entirely and hasten the advance of fully electronic commerce.

People do all sorts of things to give their children a head start in life, from putting their names down for Eton, to playing them Beethoven in the womb, but too often they miss the easiest way of giving a boost: a weird name. I can’t believe I’m advocating this given I spend half my life correcting my name (“No, it’s not Saddam”), but three things in the past week have made me realise that a rare name is an advantage.

First, I interviewed the actor Nick Frost, who informed me that his Wikipedia entry contains several references to another actor who goes by the same name. Second, I read an article by one Michael Deacon, who complained that a reporter had once come to interview him, under the wrong impression that he was the son of John Deacon, the bassist in Queen. And third, I googled my friend Mike Duff, a car journalist, to see what he has been writing, and was led instead to the work of a transvestite motorbike racer, a Mancunian crime novelist and a footballer for Burnley. In the internet age, giving your child a unique name is a major advantage. Just don’t call him Sathnam.