 He won an Open Exhibition to Balliol College, Oxford, leaving with a first in Mods and a Third in Greats.As a BBC correspondent he was a prolific contributor to From our Own Correspondent and remained with the BBC as a freelance after ceasing to be a staff correspondent and broadcast after the death of Princess Diana in Paris.He later worked for AFP as a translator and sub-editor, and taught at the now-defunct Journalists in Europe Fund as well as in Kosovo, Algeria, Albania, Georgia and Liberia.