But modern suburban life is intrinsically inimicable to high levels of political participation, just as Aristotle's Athens was inimicable to the emancipation of slaves, women and the working poor. If there's a problem, it's social more than political.Bowling Alone struck a chord because it had one clever insight. More people go bowling in the US than ever before, but fewer people join bowling leagues But why they're in decline is a puzzle. People's working hours are shorter, and they have friends round less often than they used to.

After canvassing every plausible explanation you might think of, Putnam found that the only thing that seems to take up more of their time than before is watching TV.But does it matter? Putnam thinks it does; participators are happier, more stable and more trusting; and communities with lots of participators have less crime and better schools Less participation means less social capital. Tocqueville is right: you can solve problems locally if people are good at getting together for the purpose. Still, the sceptic can't help observing that the differences are not enormous, and that we're not really faced with healthy participation on the one side and sullen apathy on the other, as if we've either got to stuff envelopes in the evening or be doomed to sit and stare at the walls instead. It may be that most people are happy watching TV at home, and would always have been so, if only their homes had been warm and dry and equipped with electricity. I find this a perfectly ghastly thought, but it may be true..

The Pope has been going round the place apologising again Last year, Jews received his message of contrition. Earlier this week, it was the Greek Orthodox church, spiritual inheritors of the religion of Byzantium. And, as I write this, John Paul II has just made the first ever visit by a pontiff to a mosque ­ in this case, the Ommayad Mosque in Damascus.If you stop and think about it for a moment, however, it isn't the constant apologising that's remarkable (though I'm in favour of it), but the fact that the man is there to do it at all. In the age of WAP phones, the internet and Dyson vacuum cleaners, how extraordinary it is that we still have a Pope. We don't, after all, have a Despot of Epirus, a Tyrant of Morea, a Sultan of Cairo, a Caliph of Baghdad, a Tsar of any of the Russias (let alone all of them), a Chinese Emperor of whatever dynasty, a Pharoah, a Great Inca, an Akond of Swat, or a Doge of Venice. There are no pashas, no satraps, no Grand Viziers, no Chief Eunuchs, no daimyos, and I am told that there isn't an extant Kabaka of Baganda, though I'm pretty sure someone will now send me an e-mail laying claim to the Kabaka-ship. Even we in this country, with our great pride in the longevity of our institutions, have to hand it to the papacy.

Nero was emperor when St Peter first had the keys ­ our united monarchy dates from nearly 1,600 years later than that. In flying round the world saying "sorry" for ancient wrongs, the Pope is cleverly emphasising just how venerable and resilient the Catholic church is when compared to almost any other human organisation.Just why that may be is a question we can return to later For the moment, I want to stick with the visit to Greece. In 1054, 12 years before the Battle of Hastings, Pope Leo IX (See? They'd already got through eight previous Leos, let alone Gregorys and Johns) was lying, imprisoned by the Normans, in the castle of Benevento in Italy. Leo partly blamed the Byzantines for not helping him in his war, a failure he regarded as merely the last symptom of the Eastern Empire's insufficiently humble attitude towards the papacy.