Most people have an opinion of Charles Darwin. And those that don’t will have by this time next year.

As the Natural History Museum opens its doors to a new Darwin exhibition, a year of lectures, events, publications, debates, and exhibitions gets underway. Even the most devoted Darwinist might be a little tired by December 2009.

As the economic crisis deepens, redundancy is likely to be happening at a company near you. Many employers and governments will seek to soften the blow but the loss of skills and knowledge threatens to impoverish us all.

Key to the solution is entrepreneurship. While this requires no state programmes to initiate, governments that do assist aspiring entrepreneurs get good value for money – the average cost of a business start-up is less than the average annual cost of keeping a student at university, a prisoner in jail or a family on welfare.

I remember seeing the first pictures of Germans hacking away at bits of the Berlin Wall. On that night a wall came down. It felt the same on Wednesday morning. A wall had come down.

And joy abounded, not primarily, I think, because the American people have elected a black man, but because of the kind of man they have elected.

Obama’s rise from poverty to the Oval office has not left him believing that anyone who works hard enough can live the American dream, but rather convinced him that most people can’t – unless the system changes. Indeed, though Obama is a brilliant orator, it is primarily his authenticity, his unconcealed intelligence, the content of his character, and the depth of his convictions that have stirred people. This man cares about the poor and the disadvantaged; this man thinks it is a scandal that people can’t afford basic healthcare in what was, until recently, the most advanced economy in the world; this man is prepared to go to war, but only on high moral ground. This man doesn’t want to rule the world, but serve it.

Spooks is back – and with a bang. The BBC’s slick and stylish spy series returned this week, only for one of its main characters to be blown out of the show by a car bomb. It’s never been quite as good since the utterly mesmerising Tom Quinn took early retirement from MI5, but this week’s episodes have proved that Spooks remains compelling viewing.

The success of Spooks can be attributed to a number of factors – the writing, acting, camera work, film editing and suspense-inducing soundtrack, to name but a few. Each of these we can rightly celebrate as examples of excellence in their field. Spooks, however, is greater than the sum of its parts, and as such has established itself as the most patriotic show on television. Arguably this, more than anything else, is the secret of its success.

The sight of stunned employees carrying their personal possessions in cardboard boxes out of the Lehman Bank building is etched in my memory. Gathering in a state of shock in local bars, some dulled their pain with alcohol and tried to rebuild self-worth through group support. And this might well prove to be just the tip of the iceberg; ‘downsizing’ will likely hit many of us with a new intensity as the economy falls into recession.

Jamie Oliver is a chef with a big appetite for change. ‘It’s Great Britain! It’s 2008!’ he despairs, ‘I’ve been to Soweto and I’ve seen AIDS orphans eating better than this.’ His new series, Jamie’s Ministry of Food, showcases his determination to transform this situation.

There has already been remarkable transformation. The once ‘naked chef’ has radically impacted the lives of several people, including a woman who ate more than 70 packets of crisps a week; the miner, who deemed cooking to be ‘women’s work’; and the mum who fed her family takeaways so frequently that her young daughter thought kebabs grew in the ground. Lest we underestimate the power and significance of food, learning to cook has transformed the lives of these people, giving them not only new skills but also new confidence and changed relationships.

Amid the current banking crisis, it has been reported that finance workers are heading for the teaching profession, leaving the office for the classroom, exchanging the Financial Times for the Times Educational Supplement. It’s not about the money or job security, apparently, or even the longer holidays, but the search for a career that will provide a greater sense of fulfilment; a public sector job in a world in which people are valued. May it be so.