Feb 27, 2019
Foreign correspondent and world affairs editor John Simpson has risked life and limb reporting for the BBC for over 50 years. The Tiananmen Square massacre, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Zimbabwe, Bosnia – you name it he was there. He’s been punched by a UK Prime Minister, bombed by US 'friendly fire', met Gaddafi in Bedouin tents across Libya, watched Saddam Hussein’s execution in court and whilst experimenting with some hallucinogenic offerings in the deepest Amazon was once hugged by a six foot goldfish wearing shades.
On this episode we cover:
How to narrow down his travels
How in 50 years some places stand out more than others
He can still count how many countries he’s been to
Being part of history
Wikipedia being true, of course
Being punched in the stomach by then Prime Minister Harold Wilson
How being punched by the PM in 1970 didn’t even make the news
How just the suggestion of an election in Britain used to be world news
Lisa getting punched by Theresa May (this hasn’t yet happened)
1962’s terrible winter in a huge house in Dunwich. Suffolk
Casablanca being different and exciting and scary
Morocco igniting his love for travel
Reporting from 48 wars
Being sad enough to count the countries we’ve being to!
Travelling to over 150 countries
His recent first trip to Greenland (doesn’t recommend it)
Greenland being ‘not very nice empty’
Eating whale meat and seeing Polar bear skins
Lisa being a huge fan of John Simpson’s British Airways Highlife Magazine column
Travelling from Paris to Tehran with ayatollah Khomeini in 1979
Still having a shoulder injury from queuing for tickets to the Ayatollah flight in Paris
Telling his BBC Boss to f**k off when he tried to stop him going
Being told the Shah’s air force had orders to shoot down the plane
Being in the biggest crowd in human history
The most exciting, frightening and disturbing moment’s of his life
What it was like to be in Beijing Tiananmen Square massacre
Watching the man standing in front of the tank
Watching the Korean cameraman next to him shot to death
The estimated 10,000 people killed in Tiananmen square
How your own safety becomes less important than what’s happening around you
How being in a crowd that’s attacking you is worse than being faced with guns and bullets
Being attacked by a crowd in Iran
Finding his colleagues in a crowd of a million or more
Being surrounded by an angry group ripping their clothes and scratching them
Standing out as a 6ft 2 Westerner
Being whacked in the face by a broomstick wielding 5ft man
The times he’s regretted being there
Not really being very brave
What is driving him
The curiosity of seeing round the next corner
Wanting to see history for himself not read it in the papers the next morning
The philosophy of travel, the urge to explore
How ‘travel’ drives him
Getting a kick out of being in places that other people aren’t
Visiting Beirut with his wife and 13 year old son
The stunning town of Byblos in Lebanon
The instinct of wanting to footprint a patch of snow
Fatherhood the second time round and how this has affected him
How it’s good for kids to travel
Being one of a handful of journalists to remain in Belgrade
His wife Dee joining him in Belgrade
How a Jacuzzi injury almost scuppered his work during the NATO bombing
The hospital being bombed by US forces
The angry hospital professor arguing over him on the operating table
Filming in Belgrade in with one whole leg encased in plaster
Enjoying the comfort of five stars hotel
Disguising himself in a burqa to enter Afghanistan
Taliban throwing out all foreigners
Being irritated by the Taliban’s threat to kill all journalists
Sneaking in through the Khyber Pass dressed as a woman
The Afghanistan equivalent of being in drag
How wearing a burqa was like a cloak of invisibility
The smuggler’s gang ignoring him as soon as he had the burqa on
Lisa’s plans to one day visit Afghanistan
Dervla Murphy’s cycle from Dublin to Delhi
Riding across the mountains and plains on horseback
Rory Stewart the Tory MP who walked across Afghanistan with his dog
Levison Wood’s journeys through Afghanistan
Being injured by friendly fire in Iraq on the day the invasion started in 2003
Following a group of Kurdish special services fighting on the allied side
Being shot at by Saddam’s tanks
The American special forces calling an airstrike on the tanks
How the Americans got the map coordinates confused and attacked the place the instruction had called on
The bomb landed 11 yards from where he was standing
The translator losing his legs and dying of blood loss
People being burnt to death all around him
Shrapnel embedded in his leg
His producer being on the phone to his mum throughout the whole thing
Getting close to Saddam Hussein
Being pissed off about the BBC not getting the interview
Watching Saddam’s trial every day in the courtroom
The awful moment he watched Saddam Hussein executed by Iraqi Shiites
Yelling out when Saddam’s body fell through the trap door
The conflicting emotions of watching someone, albeit one who’s done terrible things, be killed
How black and white and right and wrong is always more complicated than it seems
Meeting Gaddafi - always in a Bedouin tent
How Gaddafi was ‘completely barking’
How Gaddafi was much nastier than he previously imagined
Mass rapes and murders
How it can feels to be known by people like Saddam and Gaddafi
Saddam’s Information Minister spoke about John to Saddam
Saddam saying John Simpson’s BBC Panorama programme made him his ‘personal enemy’
Crazy hallucinogenic drugs in the farthest reaches of the Amazon close to the Peruvian border
The Asháninka or Asháninca tribe in the rainforests of Peru
How the 50s weren’t a great drug taking era
A six-foot goldfish with a straw hat putting a friendly flipper around his shoulders
How the world is a better place now than ever
The growth in world democracies
One billion people lifted out of poverty
How travel has changed him
Not feeling positive about Donald Trump and America at the moment
Making an effort to be less uptight
Becoming BBC correspondent in South Africa
Loving Rhodesia/Zimbabwe
How a little bit of kindness and emotion goes a long way
How he tries to keep out of Brexit
But feels it’s a major screw up and that no one was warned
Our entire political live being paralysed
How we are living in a divided nation
The current lack of political leadership
How it’s more painful than anything he’s been through in Britain over the decades
The English Civil War being fought along lines that sometimes seem very familiar
His prominent Brexiteer friend who would change his mind
The music question – it involves being in a 1000 year old Souk in Baghdad and Duke Ellington and it’s the best answer ever so you’ll just have to listen to it.