ROWING BACK



"As soon as I saw a picture of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's new president, I knew there was something faintly familiar about him.... When I read a profile of him in the English-language Tehran Times, I realised where I must have seen him: in the former American embassy in Tehran." BBC News Online, Tuesday 28th June

"What I find impossible, or so far have found impossible to remember, is where it was I saw him, which is a great shame because I might be able to know really whether he was in the US Embassy." Newsnight, Thursday 30th June

"As soon as I saw a picture of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's new president, I knew there was something faintly familiar about him...Looking back 20 years, it seemed to me I must have met him at the former US embassy, which had been taken over by revolutionary students some years earlier; but after two decades precise memories fade, and I can't be absolutely certain." BBC News Online, Friday 1st July