Matthew Richardson deserves some kind of prize for faking it as a conference speaker, even though he knew next to nothing about the subject. From The Telegraph:
Posted on February 22, 2004 02:02 AM. Filed under: miscellaneous.An Oxford engineering student was surprised but undaunted when he was approached to deliver a series of lectures in Beijing on global economics.
Matthew Richardson knew "next to nothing" about the subject but, believing he would be addressing a sixth-form audience, he felt he could "carry it off".
Mr Richardson, 23, borrowed an A-level textbook entitled An Introduction to Global Financial Markets from a library and swotted up on its contents on the flight from London to China.
From it he prepared a two-hour presentation, believing he had to deliver the same lecture several times over to different groups of students over three days.
Mr Richardson, who has the same name as a New York University professor who is a leading authority on international financial markets, was met at the airport and taken straight to a conference centre where, over lunch, "the horrible truth became apparent". [continue]