John Simpson, the voice and face of BBC World Affairs, got the Ilkley Literature Festival off to a lively start in front of a full house in King's Hall on Friday evening.

Here to promote his third volume of autobiography, No Man's Land - very successfully if the queue for signed copies was anything to go by - he talked frankly and engagingly about his experiences in the world's hot spots.

Most unnerving was the Palestinians' last night in the Lebanon, when one photo-shoot too far brought Simpson to the brink of an "execution" which turned out to be a joke. At the time, he could only pretend to find it funny, but the story certainly drew laughter from the Ilkley audience.

On a note lighter for him, he regaled his audience with stories of Abdul, the Taleban negotiator he dealt with in Kabul when trying for the release of a BBC correspondent.

Abdul turned out to be pure Brooklyn and the world expert on Mont Blanc fountain pens.

And everyone probably knows the Taleban didn't care for music, so the warning that you were not allowed to bring a grand piano in your luggage was no surprise, but they also objected specifically to billiard tables and ties...

Inevitably, the Middle East loomed large. Asked what might happen in Iraq, John Simpson recognised that Bush now had no option but to prepare for war.

His hope is that a new leader will emerge from inside Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein and that the Americans will support any uprising.

Revolutions, he said (and he has seen a lot of them), are successful when the people take charge, not when it is done for them.

A passionate advocate of the BBC and its news service, John Simpson defended its strategy of attracting an audience with lively, funny and interesting reporting.

He pointed to the 400 million viewers who followed the liberation of Kabul on BBC World news and the fact that BBC News Online scores the largest number of hits. Half of these are from the US, bearing out his claim that Americans appreciate the BBC's "take" on news stories, especially their own.

As for attitudes to Britain, John Simpson feels that we are not much liked - we are "pompous, patronising and inclined to preach"!

Britain's importance as the fourth world economy is recognised, however, as is our influence with the US.

All in all, he came over as upbeat and optimistic about world affairs and as honest and self-deprecating about his own considerable role in them.

It was an evening that was as entertaining as it was informative.

Judith Dunn