The big winners at the Oscars were No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood, prescient choices for what happened in Tuesday’s presidential primaries in the US. John McCain, now the assured Republican nominee, would be the oldest man (he is now 71) to become president; while the Democrats face a choice – whether Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton shed enough blood on the tracks to make an improbable Republican victory in November possible.

By winning the popular vote, there is no doubt Mrs Clinton punctured Mr Obama’s balloon in Ohio and Texas, but she did not deflate it. Facing elimination if she lost both, she has reason to soldier on. But Mr Obama retains enough of a lead in accumulating pledged delegates (awarded in primaries and caucuses) – possibly winning more than her in Texas when the final count is in – that it will be hard for her to make up the gap in the coming contests. He also still has a diminishing edge in the popular vote nationally.