This will again probably sound a bit silly, but recently I’ve been pondering the fact that, given I do not have a photo of me meeting Patrick Stewart, how do I know it really happened? How can I confirm it actually occurred? My memory could be playing tricks on me. Of course, we all know that, if push came to shove, I could look up the member of staff at the Excel centre who helped me, who could confirm my experience; and it is very unlikely that my brain is playing tricks. Why should I be concerned that my brain might be tricking me over this particular event, when there is a long list of other events of which I have memories but no pictures, simply because it is so important to me? Yet, when you think about it, this is an interesting question. Barthes said that the photo has a unique ability to verify the past, to say ”only and for certain what has been” – although I suppose even that is no longer strictly true these days; so, without a photo, how can we be sure something happened? This is what interests me about historiography, which I began to write about the other day: the idea that history is a discourse open to change and debate. I have a vivd memory; I have several other photographs placing me at the event; but how can I be absolutely sure I met Sir Patrick Stewart without direct photographic evidence? The only possible solution, I suppose, is to endeavour to meet him again!