Gore Vidal once said you should never turn down the opportunity to have sex or appear on television. This is such staggeringly bad life-advice that you can only imagine it was something he regularly said to new young acquaintances, just before inviting them back to his place for a bubble bath and to try out his new TV camera.I was on the French island of Réunion last week for Getaway magazine with my friend Teagan the photographer, preparing to climb the volcano, when a French news crew asked to interview us. I was wary. Why were we newsworthy? Had someone Tipp-Exed out the moustache from an old Interpol "Wanted" poster and identified me as part of the rag-tag mercenary squad known as The D-Team? Had Teagan been exposed as the shadowy figure hitherto known only as La Tigra, notorious for her role in facilitating the escapes of the mobster El Chapo?"No," said our contact. "They just want to talk to you about Réunion."A likely story. I was on high alert. You don't become the last member of The D-Team still at large by being complacent.The rendezvous was arranged for a public place - the weekly market in the small coastal town of Saint-Paul, near where the dismembered remains of the pirate Olivier Levasseur, "The Buzzard", lie interred. I didn't know how they caught The Buzzard but I suspected it had something to do with a TV camera and a request for an interview.The camera crew consisted of a weather-beaten old Frenchman with a face like a diplomatic pouch. I told him I'd prepared a short statement about Réunion that I'd be prepared to read at this time - something non-committal and unincriminating in praise of the climate and topography that couldn't be used against me later - but he flapped an existentialist hand and announced that he wanted footage to play over the interview. We should walk around the market and "act natural"."But walking around a market is a most unnatural thing for me to do," I countered shrewdly.He just shrugged and turned down the corners of his mouth like a world-weary French shark, because by that time his rheumy old eyes had turned to Teagan, who in certain lighting conditions could be deemed as slightly more photogenic than me. I could see what was passing through his dissolute Gallic mind: Who needs the old guy? Cherchez la femme!When you look at that insert now, you see Teagan drifting through the market like a younger royal on a state visit, faithfully followed by the camera, politely admiring the merchandise, smiling graciously, taking slightly implausible snaps, while in the background I make valiant attempts to come lurching into frame. Look! Over here! I'm thoughtfully considering this Je t'aimeRéunion keyring! Guys! You just missed my spontaneous by-play with the kid on the home-made pogo stick!The only time I managed to score some camera time was when I was inspecting dried ingredients that you mix with a bottle of rum and leave for three months to make a deliciously flavoured beverage with which to repel your dinner guests.Suddenly the camera appeared. "Buy it," hissed the director. Acting natural, I handed over à10."Zut!" said the director and moved on. I looked at the vendor. He had my à10. I offered his goods back. He looked at me as though I was The Buzzard, raised from his grave and returned to his marauding. Was this it? Was this why we were here? Just a gigantic scam to sucker me out of my precious foreign currency?Afterwards I demanded to know the deal. Why us? What's the news angle? The director shrugged and said it was either us or the striking postal workers. "We are French," he said, "a strike is not news."Last year a piece of suspected wreckage from flight MH370 washed up on a rocky beach and reporters from around the world descended on Réunion. That same week the volcano erupted. The locals basked in the attention but they were sad too because they knew they were using up all their newsworthiness in one fiery plume. Soon they would return to their doze in the Indian Ocean haze, no news going on, no one watching.Imagine being part of a country with so little happening... I tutted with pity, and then I felt foolish for tutting. In South Africa we're overcharged with news. Each day is such a lava stream of scandal, fury and fear that our adrenal glands are overstimulated. We don't know what normal feels like any more. Our own bit of MH370 wreckage was minor news for half an hour; we're never at rest. Imagine being a country as boring and news-poor as Réunion. We should be so lucky...