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The 20th century was bloody and terrible in many ways but 20 years ago today, one grim chapter in the history of that time was brought to a good conclusion. The fall of the Berlin Wall was an extraordinary event.
It marked the end of the physical division of Berlin, it was followed by the end of the political division of Germany and, with remarkable speed, by the opening of the Iron Curtain. It was the good news story of the century.
Today, world leaders are gathered in Berlin to commemorate the "happiest occasion in recent German history" as Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, herself from East Germany, put it. Gordon Brown is there; so is Hillary Clinton and Lech Walesa, the Polish Solidarity leader.
So too is the man without whom the fall of the wall could not have happened, at least not when it did: Mikhail Gorbachev.
It was he who, having initiated historic reforms in Russian Communism, let it be known that, unlike his predecessors, he would not keep the East European states within the Russian sphere by force. He remade history and he deserves his plaudits today.
Events have since moved on, dominated by the grim sequence of conflicts that followed the 9/11 attacks.
It is, given the war in Afghanistan, and the threat posed by Islamic extremism, within and without, hard to sustain a sense of optimism but it is worth pausing today to recall a time when it seemed that anything was possible.
The threat of Communism to the West, and its grim reality for those who lived in Communist states, has simply gone, something that would once have seemed unthinkable. A united Germany has been a force for good in Europe.
Granted, there are serious flaws in our own materialistic and individualistic society and in the way capitalism works - the credit crunch demonstrates that much - but freedom is still infinitely preferable to the alternative.
Europe is a far happier place for the events of 1989 and today's anniversary is one for all of us to celebrate.
Ad hoc justice
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Keith Starmer, has identified a serious flaw in the justice system: the extent to which police respond to violent offences with a caution rather than bringing the offender to court.
The aim of issuing on-the-spot cautions rather than arresting offenders was and is laudable: to relieve some of the pressure on the courts by taking minor offenders, such as shoplifters, out of the system.
Yet as Mr Starmer points out, the upshot is that a 15-year-old boy has been cautioned for rape. If, as one senior judge warned, someone cautioned for a violent offence goes on to commit murder, the public will be rightly incensed.
The answer, as Mr Starmer suggests, is to give police greater clarity about which offences should be dealt with on the spot and which should result in prosecution. As he says, any offence above the level of common assault should go before the courts.
Given that nearly half of all offences are dealt with outside them, this will amount to a significant shift in the way offences are dealt with. So it should: ad hoc justice is no substitute for the real thing.
Best of the thesps
The shortlist for the Evening Standard's drama awards is published today and it demonstrates the sheer vitality of the London stage.
Young playwrights such as Lucy Prebble and established actors such as Simon Russell Beale and Juliet Stevenson are among the contenders.
But the real winners, in this flowering of dramatic talent, is the London theatregoer, who is constantly spoilt for choice.
