Two years ago I gave up an afternoon and travelled to London to be interviewed for Vice magazine.
The subsequent article wasn't published for reasons I've never fully understood but I wasn't surprised.
At the time Vice was running a £5 million quit smoking campaign funded by PMI and I struggled to see how a feature about the ‘smokers' lobby’ would sit comfortably with such strident anti-smoking propaganda.
Part of me was also a little relieved because another article written by the same journalist had been about a group whose members drink their own urine.
Given the nature of Vice I had every reason to think he might take the piss out of Forest as well.
Anyway, more than a year after the article was spiked the same journalist got in touch to ask if he could interview me a second time for an even more hip and trendy magazine (ie one I had never heard of).
I agreed and last October we met up again.
But this time, because of Covid restrictions, we met not in the comfort of the Back Bar at Boisdale of Belgravia but outside Broadcasting House in central London where there is a Caffe Nero with outdoor seating.
Braving the cold we chatted for about an hour during which he reminded me of some of the things I had said in our earlier meeting.
Apparently I had compared smoking to skiing but if I did I don't remember. No matter.
This time I proffered some comments about Covid and the management of risk which, if they were published today, might make me sound like a lockdown sceptic, which I'm not.
Either way it's now five months since our second meeting and the article/interview has still not appeared so I'm beginning to think I'm just not cool enough to feature in such smart company.
Either that or the hatchet job the editor may have thought he commissioned didn't materialise.
I have however been done up like a kipper before by journalists I thought I had got on quite well with. On one occasion I even ended up on the front page of a national newspaper - and not in a good way - so I never count my chickens.
The next issue of this groovy but largely unknown publication is due this month. If I'm not in it I will be very disappointed!