I drove out to visit the set at Elstree Studios, Herts, of the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which was making headlines at the time and it was quite a little scoop for me. So I was pretty nervous as I made my way to his portakabin at the back of the studio lot.

The great man was apparently having his lunch but wouldn’t mind being disturbed to do a quick interview. I suspected that he didn’t suffer fools gladly, and he was always playing menacing tough guys, so I was keen to make a good impression and was extra nervous knocking on the door.

He waved me in and I sat down politely as he started tucking into a giant plate of salad – lettuce, cucumber, tomatoes and a whole load of other green veggie stuff. A huge amount, piled high on his plate. Just salads. He looked starving and was stabbing it with his fork rather aggressively, then chomping away.

I was very keen to get the interview off to a good start and wanted to come up with a polite first question. But I felt awkward asking him anything meaningful about the film while he had his mouth full and was wolfing down this massive plate of fodder.

So, tentatively, I innocently remarked: “Mmm, that looks healthy.” … Pause… Silence. Then the great Bob Hoskins looked up from his lunch, shot me a filthy glare and barked: “ARE YOU TAKING THE PISS, MATE!!!???” …

I nearly passed out with fright. I guess I must have been in a total state of shock after that because I can’t remember a single other thing about him.

Occasionally, “quoted out of context” can be a polite euphemism for simply “misquoted”, with the politician hedging their bets and not wanting to burn their bridges with the correspondent in question, who may be someone they want to keep in contact with in the future.

Alleged downright fabrication by the journalist is something else, and politicians sometimes also claim this. But there are ways a journalist can safeguard against this unwelcome danger.

One is to clearly show the interviewee that you are taking immaculate shorthand notes throughout, another is to produce a tape recorder as well, just to demonstrate that the chat is being recorded (in evidence).

At the height of some political controversy or other, I was once sent to interview Tony Benn. “Just be careful and make sure you take an accurate shorthand note of whatever he tells you,” the Press Association newsdesk warned me as I set off. “He’s an absolute stickler about being misquoted and we don’t want any trouble.”

I reassured my boss: “Don’t worry,” I replied, “I’ll also use my new mini tape recorder.” (Around this time, in the late Eighties, mini tape recorders were something of a novelty and some journalists were only just starting to use them. I recall these machines were both expensive and also rubbish.)

I meet Mr Benn. I think it was in a small cafe somewhere in east London, filled with formica-topped tables. “Thank you very much for agreeing to be interviewed. I hope you don’t mind if I use this as well,” says I, opening my notebook and also provocatively placing my tape recorder on the table in between us (feeling certain this would surely discourage him from trying to claim later that I had misquoted him in any way).

“No problem at all, dear chap,” replies the fearsome Labour MP with a gleam in his eye. Whereupon he dives into his jacket pocket and pulls out an IDENTICAL mini tape recorder to my own. Clicking it on, he places it neatly parallel right next to mine on the table. “Now what did you want to ask me?”