Channel 4’s The Secret Millionaire is TV that can legitimately claim to change lives. Each programme follows a millionaire as they go ‘undercover’ for two weeks, to experience life on benefit in a deprived area. During their fortnight, the millionaire seeks out volunteer opportunities with local community projects, with a view to identifying worthy causes to which they can donate cash. Each programme concludes with the millionaire returning to selected projects to express thanks and admiration, and then to reveal their true identity and hand over a cheque, often for several thousand pounds.

This week marks the 40th anniversary of Dad’s Army. It is testimony to the enduring appeal of the show that BBC2 has given over its entire evening schedule this Saturday to Dad’s Army-related programming, and that BBC1 will broadcast a special celebration on Sunday evening. And it’s not just those who saw it first time round who are fans – my 9-year-old son has been beside himself with laughter whenever he’s caught one of the recent run of repeats.

Teresa Clarke finally passed her driving test this week – after 27 years. It was the thirteenth test she had taken, after a total of 450 hours of tuition, at a cost of £15,000. Naturally, she was delighted; or, as her relieved driving instructor put it, ‘she went absolutely bananas.’ Well, wouldn’t you, after 27 years?

Truth is that many of us would have given up long before. However, despite all the setbacks she encountered, Mrs Clarke insists that she, ‘never wanted to give up learning to drive.’ The primary reason why her success is newsworthy is because such perseverance is a rare thing in our ‘instant society’.

The reason we talk about having the ‘courage of our convictions’ is because there are consequences that flow from those convictions – and not all of them happy ones.

This week, in an interview with The Times, George Bush reflected on his presidency and expressed regret that the rhetoric he used in regard to the Iraq war has created a legacy for him as ‘a guy really anxious for war.’ Had he known back then what he knows now, about the consequences of his language, he would have taken a different tone.

“This report contains images that some viewers may find distressing.”

This is a line that our television newscasters have to deliver with alarming regularity. Barely are we coming to terms with pictures of lifeless bodies floating in filthy water in Burma when we are confronted with pictures from China, of bodies buried under tonnes of rubble after the earthquake. Both sets of pictures tell the story of thousands of lives lost and of human misery in epic proportions.

“Is there any comedy in dying under a train?”

That was the somewhat disarming question put to the actor, Mackenzie Crook, when he arrived for the premiere of his new film, Three and Out on Monday evening. It was asked by one of a number of Tube train drivers, picketing the premiere in protest at what they regard as the film’s insensitive handling of suicide on the London Underground.

Quite apart from this particular film, the picketing driver’s question raises the broader issue of whether everything is fair game for comedic interpretation, or whether there are certain things that should remain off-limits.

‘Those MPs who have approached me’, the Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff told Radio 4 recently, ‘have said: “I don’t think this is right. I accept the teachings of the church, yet I’m a government minister, or I’m a Labour MP. Can I discuss with you the moral dilemma I have?”’