It may have been the most expensive presidential race in history. But the key determinant was not turnover but turnout. So strong were the numbers in Missouri that they kept the polls open to keep up with the demand. It was not how many of the undecided Gore or Bush could convince to come their way that mattered, but how many of those who had long ago made up their minds they could convince to come out and vote.

In the end David Dimbleby, James Naughtie, Jeremy Paxman and John Simpson were not to be disappointed. The Queen Mother was in relatively good health; the US elections were back on the top of the agenda. They were in the right place; the trouble is it was the wrong time. With America between five and nine hours behind, a race that would go down to the wire would leave them high on hypothesis and low on facts. So they spent the American afternoon talking to viewers in the late British evening about a result that most people on both sides of the Atlantic might not know until the early hours of the next morning.

On one side of the street, the African-American flag flies from the black firefighters hall; on the other, inscriptions on an ambulance and posters on lamp-posts are in Yiddish. Geographically close yet culturally distant, politically united yet mutually antagonistic, once economically interdependent, now socially stratified - the story of the relationship between African-Americans and Jews is long and complex. It is a narrative stretching back through the last century and beyond, which has veered from the inspiring to the horrific. They were once great allies during the civil rights era and within the Democratic party, but more recently have been bitter and sometimes bloody foes.

Donald Dewar's much lamented departure is now having a similar effect on the Scottish parliament. While he was alive, the governing body he had done so much to create had been embraced by Scots in principle but was struggling to inspire confidence in practice.