Well, that was a long and occasionally bizarre day.
The announcement that the London Health Commission – a body set up by Mayor of London Boris Johnson in 2013 – wants to ban smoking in the capital's parks and squares sparked a mini media frenzy.
For me the day began at 5.00am (following four hours' sleep) when I scoured the newspapers, online and in print, to see how much coverage the story was getting.
It was front page on the Daily Mail and the story – and Forest's response – was also featured in the Guardian, Mirror, Daily Express and Daily Star. Online our comments were featured on a hundred or more media websites including BBC News, ITV News, Channel 4 News, LBC, Reuters and many more.
At 5.40 I got a request to appear on Good Morning Britain (ITV) at 7.00 but I could't because I was still at home in Cambridgeshire.
Instead, at 6.05 I talked to Paul Ross and Penny Smith on BBC Radio London before driving to Huntingdon to catch a train to Kings Cross.
Shortly after nine I was in a taxi en route to Broadcasting House for a series of back-to-back BBC local radio interviews:
BBC Radio Kent
BBC Radio Coventry & Warwickshire
BBC Radio Shropshire
BBC Radio Surrey & Sussex
BBC Radio Devon
BBC Radio Berkshire
BBC Radio Cornwall
BBC Radio Sheffield
BBC Radio Stoke
BBC Radio Leicester
BBC Radio Scotland
BBC Radio Gloucestershire
Next stop – following a coffee break at Caffe Nero directly outside the entrance to Broadcasting House (lots of BBC employees in the smoking area!) – was the ITV News studios in Gray's Inn Road.
My opponent was former Labour minister Tessa Jowell but having travelled to the studio and waited 30 minutes to do a live interview we were given no time at all to make our points.
Watching at home, Dan Donovan commented: "Took me longer to eat a sandwich."
My next appointment was in a small park, Paddington Street Gardens. No, I'd never heard of it either and nor had the cab driver.
When we found it I made a beeline for the BBC cameraman in the corner and we were soon joined by health correspondent Branwen Jeffreys and an old adversary Dr Alan Maryon-Davies.
It must be eight years since Branwen and I last met but I remember it vividly because it was the day MPs voted for a comprehensive smoking ban (February 14, 2006).
Like yesterday it was a long day punctuated with numerous interviews in a variety of locations across central London.
My first interview with Branwen was in the morning at the King's Head pub in Islington. Later I was asked to go back and be interviewed again, after MPs had voted, and I recall pitching up tired, desperate for a pint, and in a resigned, somewhat flippant mood.
Branwen got several commentators to line up in front of the bar – I felt like the condemned man – and she went down the line inviting us to say a few words.
I was holding a pint in one hand and it was the only moment in my life I wished I was a smoker so I could have lit a cigarette and exhaled with the sort of insouciance that epitomises the coolest smokers.
Anyway, I won't forget yesterday's meeting in a hurry either. One, Branwen wore an electric pink coat that will be seared on my brain forever.
Two, we had a really good laugh – and I include Alan Maryon-Davies in that. (Alan and I have crossed swords several times on radio but in person he's very charming.)
Anyway, Branwen had decided she wanted to do something a bit different. So the three of us were filmed walking together, chatting intensely.
Alan and I were then filmed facing one another, deep in conversation. Over and over we repeated the points we wanted to make while the cameraman swooped around us.
Occasionally one or both of us went off piste. At one point I suggested there should be "adult only" parks which prompted quizzical looks followed by a sudden burst of laughter.
It was a slightly facetious comment but the more I think about it the better it sounds! Why should children dictate everything adults can and can't do in public?
The whole thing took 30 minutes to film. Inevitably the broadcast report was a fraction of that, with Alan and I given no more than a ten-second soundbite apiece, but it was fun to film.
Then it was back to Gray's Inn Road to record a brief interview (in another small park) for ITV's Evening News. It wasn't broadcast, as far as I know.
Come 4.30 I was at the Millbank Studios in Westminster doing a live interview on Sky News with Kay Burley, followed by a recorded interview to be broadcast later.
I was also booked to do CNN but that was cancelled because of the developing ebola story. Instead my final interview – at 9.00pm – was with the BBC News Channel, back at Broadcasting House.
I arrived home at 11.30.
Thankfully Forest wasn't alone yesterday. Other opponents of excessive regulation pitched in and were vocal in their condemnation of the plan.
Stephanie Lis, representing the Institute of Economic Affairs, did a great job on several programmes including Five Live and Channel 5 News.
The Institute of Ideas was out there too courtesy of Claire Fox and David Bowden. Read Dave's insightful article Why did Lord Darzi pull out of an anti-smoking debate? on Politics.co.uk.
I also bumped in to Dave Atherton who was coming out of Broadcasting House just as I was arriving in the morning.
The good news is: Boris seems to have distanced himself from the proposal to ban smoking in parks. According to the Telegraph today: Boris Johnson calls ban on smoking in parks 'bossy'.
Of course the plan will come back again and again. That's how the anti-smoking lobby work. They keep banging on until they get what they want, relentlessly browbeating the opposition (and politicians) into submission or apathy.
All I'll say is this: we made a lot of mistakes when we campaigned against the ban on smoking in enclosed public places a decade ago. We won't make the same mistakes again.
Further reading: Park smoking ban shows how tragically anti-smoking movement lost its way (Ian Dunt).