This is great:
Telegraph | News | 'I blagged my way through, reading a torn-up textbook and ad libbing': 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.... ...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". ..."I have no idea who they were expecting. Being Chinese, they were inscrutable and if they were expecting someone else they didn't show it. Perhaps they thought I was a prodigy. They all called me professor. "I had come this far, so I decided not to back out. I hoped I could blag my way through." ..."Because I was speaking through an interpreter I had the time to glance at the pages and prepare myself for what I was going to say next. I ad libbed a bit and really got into the subject. I was learning as much as my audience." ..."It was only on my return to Britain that I discovered that there is a professor with the same name in New York. To this day I do not know if that is who the Chinese were expecting."
