Simpson takes a short cut

John Simpson gives chapter and verse in Ariel mag this week on how he got past the ban on BBC hacks in Zimbabwe. The master of disguise reveals he was determined to spike the guns of the return of News at Ten with a live two-way from inside Zimbabwe. However, on the morning of transmission the cameraman, Nigel Bateson, realised the live camera was broken. In a bid to save the day, Nigel rang his wife Sally in South Africa. She got another camera and drove nine hours with it along a dangerous road into Zimbabwe. Only to find when she got to the game lodge near Harare from which Simpson was broadcasting that her husband had found a tiny Handycam video recorder and used that instead. According to Simpson, Sally "like a good South African grinned, congratulated us, and started to prepare for the return journey". Monkey bets that she uttered a few expletives on the way back.