“Prior to the agrarian revolution…” boomed the pompous voice across the lecture hall.

We were supposed be celebrating my birthday with tea and cake, but instead were forced to listen to this overblown academic drone on and on and on, convinced that he alone could solve the problem of famine in Africa. His line of argument drew on his own latest book, a work that was based on not a single jot of empirical research.

It was rumoured that this same man kept a head and shoulders portrait of me under his desk at work so that he could stamp on it at regular intervals, voodoo-style.