And the journalist with the world's most prospectively impossible job is … Brian Taylor, the BBC's political editor in Scotland.

If and when Scotland gets its independence vote, it will be a campaign of visceral intensity: a question of freedom and national identity drenched in emotion. But it will also pose the most direct of challenges to anyone working for the BBC – because you can't have a British Broadcasting Corporation without a Britain.

Deciding how news agendas change as you reach Berwick has always been sticky, and has grown stickier still since the Holyrood effect has rendered reporting on Westminster politics less and less relevant on hundreds of domestic issues. But how can BBC Scotland chronicle a debate that decides its own future (and its £100m budget) without one side or the other crying foul?

So far the indigenous press (Scotsman, Herald) are playing circumspect even-handedness, whilst the London-owned press (Record, Sun etc) keep their powder dry. But it is hard to see independence boasting many standard bearers come the autumn of 2014. Which makes broadcast reporting of the campaign even more vital.

Scotland is a small country and the elites in small countries know each other well. That's one cauldron brewing nicely. Meanwhile, Jim, Kirsty, Andrew (1) and Andrew (2), the network émigrés, will be stirring their own pot. Hubble, bubble, Brian trouble.