It turns out that genetic evidence suggests that human evolution is speeding up, and that it has not halted or proceeded at a constant rate, as had been thought by scientists, and by viewers of movies starring Sylvester Stallone. But why should that surprise us, when everything has been speeding up - from house price rises and banking crises to summer floods?

Take politics. A generation ago it would have taken a couple of parliamentary terms for a prime minister to be embarrassed by scandals involving secret donors, the loss by Revenue & Customs of the financial details of 25 million people, a revolt by former generals in the Lords over stingy military funding, botched capital gains tax changes, a ham-fisted rescue of a troubled financial institution, and an uncourageous retreat from the brink of calling a general election. Now all these humiliations have stung Gordon Brown in a couple of months, launching the Prime Minister on his dizzy evolutionary trajectory - as the Liberal Democrat neanderthal Vince Cable so cruelly captured it - from Stalin to Mr Bean.

The evidence of accelerating change can be seen in the way rich people eat more, thereby getting fatter, faster: even cinemagoers attend movies with enough food for an Everest expedition.

But just how far have we actually advanced? Is the graffiti artist Banksy much more than a modern-day cave painter? Is hunting and gathering all that very different from the daily hunt down supermarket aisles in search of something appetising to put before the hungry mouths at home?

As for War And Peace to The Da Vinci Code — is that what anyone would truly call progress?