Spiked! But I was drunk

Tom Heneghan's Afghan recollection reminded me of a reporting trip I made in the early 1990s to Armenia, where our fixer encouraged me to end my stint with a visit to the capital's famed Yerevan Brandy Company. The final stop on a tour of the crumbling distillery involved a generous sampling of a great number of vintages. Once I had sobered up, I wrote my feature, filed it and went on holiday. When I returned to London a couple of weeks later, I checked the features clip and could not find my story. The features editor, Bernard Melunsky, let me know he had spiked it. "Everyone who visits Yerevan writes about the brandy factory," he said. ■