I'm delighted that Barack Obama is to be the new leader of the free world, but I fear he could prove a disappointment: after eight years of the worst president in history, people's expectations may be unrealistically high.

In Britain, Tony Blair was given a radical mandate for change in 1997, and largely squandered it during the ensuing decade, chipping away at the edges of all that was wrong in British society and failing to tackle many of the really big issues.

But there's no doubting that America is a better place to be this morning than last night, and it will be heartening to watch it regain its respected status on the world stage. Obama could get off to a flying start on his first day by shutting down Guantanamo, banning torture and calling a halt to so-called extraordinary rendition.

We watched the CNN coverage with next-door neighbours and fellow political junkies Kevin and Matt, and it was exceptionally good.

There were giant touch screens detailing past and projected results for every state and county, and ultra-detailed demographic breakdowns. We learned, for example, that the three most reliable predictors of Democratic leanings were being male, having a college degree and never going to church, which is me in a nutshell.

In a milestone in TV history, we were treated to interviews with holograms: not real ones, just superimposed on the screen, though grizzled anchor Wolf Blitzer made a convincing job of pretending his subjects were chatting away right in front of him. They wobbled slightly round the edges, as though trapped in limbo by a temporary transporter malfunction on the USS Enterprise.

I'm in a bit of a no-man's-land myself at the moment. I love elections, and I've never failed to vote in the UK, but in an exception to the principle of no taxation without representation it will be many years before I'm allowed to do so here, and I'll have to become a citizen first.

Voting is one of the two big advantages of adopting US citizenship; the other is never having to deal with the immigration authorities again.

I'm now in the long, slow process of adjusting my status, which means I've started the ball rolling towards getting a green card and becoming a legal permanent resident.

I've just sent off another sixteen pages of forms and another cheque, this time for $1,010. If these are approved, I'll actually get my 'advance parole', which sounds like an alternative to a jail sentence but is effectively permission to leave the country, which I can't at present.

But as I've said before, even when I'm feeling positively overwhelmed by red tape, I try never to lose sight of the fact that living here is a privilege not to be taken for granted.