The arts can still rise above these cutbacks

George Osborne and David Laws look like they're having a splendid time, swinging the scythe. Take that, Child Trust Funds! Eat this, ministerial Jags! And what's this? The Department of Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport? Say your prayers, suckers!

Given the swingeing nature of the cuts — and this is just the beginning, remember — it is hard to maintain that the ministry responsible for fun should be spared its three per cent trim. Arts administrators are fatalistic about the chop, but that doesn't mean they're enjoying this.

"We will do our utmost to minimise the effect on the frontline but we cannot guarantee that there will be no effect," warned Dame Liz Forgan, chair of Arts Council England. Note her appropriation of "frontline", a buzzword usually reserved for uncuttable health and education services.

By employing it in an arts context, is she drawing a parallel between, say, ambulance drivers and and avant-garde trumpeters? Inviting the comparison is not the best way to gain sympathy, I dare say.

Still, it is easy to identify the benefits of publicly funded culture. In theatre, classical music, dance and opera, London has become a global leader, full of "world class" institutions, to fall on another buzzword. The positive effect on our national prestige is immeasurable — and more sectors of society have enjoyed this bounty than ever, not least through the free museum and gallery admissions policy. It will be painful to watch well-run organisations and initiatives being hackd back in the coming years.

And yet there is a glimmer of optimism here. What is bad for arts organisations is not always bad for art in general — and more through accident than design, we may be hitting a new golden age.

Since the mood of austerity began with the 2008 credit crunch, it is striking how many people have taken culture into their own hands. This for me was exemplified by the Museum of Everything, a wonderfully unpretentious exhibition of outsider art that appeared in Primrose Hill last year, like a sort of anti-Tate Modern.

But there's also been the remarkable boom in home restaurants, the rise of the art squatters, theatre in weird places, secret raves, knitting circles, quilt-making. When even my parents talk about setting up an open-mic night in their suburban garden, it's hard to avoid the idea that something is changing in the way people view creativity in London.

Partly it is an instinct towards self-expression; partly it is a reaction against blandness and homogenity; partly it is a result of the internet connecting like-minded people. Put it together and it seems we are moving from a top-down culture to something in which we can all participate. An artistic version of the Big Society, perhaps?

I sense there will be enough to be angry about in the next few years to keep it ticking along quite nicely.

Westminster's flunkeys were falling over themselves to condemn the protesters camped on Parliament Square yesterday. All those tents and banners, they have suddenly decided, are not nice for the Queen. It being 1674 and everything.

Brian Haw, the anti-war demonstrator who has kept his lonely vigil for almost a decade now — a national institution, in his way — was arrested as dozens of angry protesters made funny faces at the royal coach. Former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind MP branded the peace camp on Parliament Square an "international embarrassment".

Well, guess what? It's not supposed to look pretty. It's supposed to make you feel uncomfortable — otherwise Mr Haw and his friends are not doing their job. As for the Queen, she will have heard and processed the worst slights already. I suspect she rises above it all. She certainly does not need her subjects to be offended on her behalf.

Oh the joys of the countryside! I was near the Welsh border at the weekend for a friend's stag do. Between the splendid company and the stupendous hangovers, quite the most cherishable thing was our paintball instructor — a man who had invented his own form of martial arts ("budo") and could hold a man down for five minutes using only his thumb.

"I had a group of gays here the other week," he informed us as we sweated in our overalls, waiting to begin. "Mincing around all over the place, they were." Once he had told us the rules of a game (shoot each other at point blank range) we wondered if he had ever seen any serious injuries?

"One of them gays, as it happens. Broke his leg in three places." Served him right, I suspect — but at least he wasn't foolish enough to be Islamic. "Every time I have Muslims here, I'm obliged to notify the police," he said, before scoring a full-house in this particular game of bigotry bingo by saying that Muslim women were the worst. "Vicious, they are."

I'm sure the police — in fact, I'm sure all of us — are heartily grateful for his vigilance.

What wonderful weather we have been having, by the way. And there's nothing like a burst of sunshine for drawing out completely unscientific, faintly jingoistic comparisons with whichever province of the world happens to be a a bit cooler than we might assume.

It has been variously noted that Britain is more sweltering than Madrid, has baked in temperatures twice as hot as Sydney, has outscorched even Rio. In other words, summer happens to have arrived here while there's a bit of a cold front over Spain and the southern hemisphere is approaching midwinter. It was nice while it lasted.