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.

A pope gives a lecture in Europe and nuns are murdered in Ethiopia. A writer publishes a novel and is forced into hiding. A teacher allows her class to name a teddy bear after a popular pupil and a crowd call for her death.

Ian McEwan has come a long way since the days when his menacing, somewhat morbid tales of deviancy and dysfunctionality earned him the nickname ‘Ian MacAbre’. Today, ten novels and five film adaptations later, he is regarded by many literary critics as one of Britain’s finest living novelists. Amsterdam won the Booker Prize in 1998 and his new novel, On Chesil Beach, is shortlisted for this year’s award.

Can we escape our programming?

Can any of us really sail against the cultural tides that shape our minds, our hearts, our imaginations, our everyday decisions?

This is the question that lies behind the breathtaking car chases, visceral fight scenes and frenetic, Machiavellian machinations of Britain’s current number-one film, The Bourne Ultimatum.

‘Labour isn’t working.’ So ran the headline of the Conservatives’ brilliant poster campaign back when UK unemployment was at a post-war high. Today’s headline should probably read: ‘Labour is working too hard.’

‘What if the world realises that the greatest story ever told is a lie?’ So asks the Grail expert Leigh Teabing in the much anticipated but almost universally panned film of Dan Brown’s novel The Da Vinci Code. It was this assault on the reliability of the Gospels that led most Christian commentators to regard it as a dangerous book, particularly as Brown’s ‘evidence’ was skilfully woven into a credible, entertaining and often accurate tour of art, history, symbology, theology – and some very lovely buildings.

Sin, we sometimes think, is an outmoded word, meaningless to the average person in the street. That may be so, but Robbie Williams certainly believes that his audience understands that there’s more to sin than over-indulging on cream cakes; that it involves, perhaps, some elemental break in a relationship with the living God.