I stayed over in Newport Monday night to work on the database server in an early morning slot. Driving over to the office at 3:45am I switched on the radio and got BBC World Service, and an excitable John Simpson broadcasting live from the centre of Kabul. "I don't know how to say this modestly, but the BBC have just liberated Kabul!"

What an amazing moment, the collapse of the odious Taliban regime is just a beautiful, unexpected thing. Children flying kites, women - faces uncovered - smiling from windows, pop music playing, young men getting a shave. OK, a mixed blessing, there will still be ugliness and violence in the weeks to come: but you'd be crazy not to see that this is a time of new hope for Afghanistan.