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We learned from his British Airways Highlife column in September (sub-headed 'What the world’s most famous correspondent gets up to off duty') that John Simpson, 71, has now settled in Oxford. The BBC's World Affairs Editor In Perpetuity actually got his degree at Cambridge, but has long sported Oxford tan brogues, even under the burka that got him into Afghanistan.

This week that, still off-duty we presume, he also attended a demonstration outside Oriel College, where protesters urged the removal of a statue of alumnus and donor Cecil Rhodes. It sits in a first floor alcove of The Rhodes building, fronting on to the High Street, alongside likenesses of Edward VII and George V.