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It doesn't quite match up to the relief of Mafeking in 1900 or even the attempted seizure of Baghdad in 1915 (actually, that failed with the loss of more than 50,000 lives – but we don't like to dicuss it at the moment), but John Simpson's liberation of Kabul stands there at least with the great British invasions of Afghanistan. Max Hastings marched into Port Stanley at the head of a column of British troops. John Simpson went into Kabul with only a camera crew, several dozen excited children, a viewership in the millions and a city deserted by its defenders.

"It never occurred to me that other journalists would think that the greatest achievement in the BBC's recent news history would be gall and wormwood," he said yesterday on receiving an Emmy award for his transmission. Absolutely. What need hath Evelyn Waugh to have written Scoop when the reality is so much more glorious than fiction?