OK, this one truly is off topic. Here is an article written by a deputy vice-chancellor at University of Natal, describing the inauguration of the new vice-chancellor (i.e. president) of the university. Amusing. Hard of hearing. Snippet: The loudspeakers were in front of us so that we heard not a word. It was clear from his gestures that Minister Kader Asmal gave an enthusiastic speech, presumably about higher education but for all we could hear it might have been about trout fishing, or about the rival claims of the cigarette brands to which he is still addicted. We could just about hear that our new vice-chancellor believed that our university should strike a proper balance between being globally competitive and contextually African, in which we supported him, and we enjoyed his sister's poem which, by some strange trick of electronics, was audible to us as the speeches were not.
