"Madiba
was scheduled to address the Palestinian parliament on the day before our
departure. Prof. Gerwel edited the speech back in South Africa and emailed the
new version to me. I didn’t have time to read it and somehow a virus of some
sort crept into the computer program. The last sentence of the speech ended
with a mathematical formula. Madiba also didn’t read the final edits and as a
result he read out the maths at the end of the speech. It was in letters and,
although I cannot remember the exact words, it was something like: “For every
two equals four minus seven times eight. I thank you”. We were all puzzled but
after his speech the entire Palestinian parliament rose to their feet in
resounding applause. The speech was translated simultaneously and either the
translator didn’t the maths formula or translated it into something profound.
We were all surprised by this occurrence of this virus but amused by the fact
that no one picked up on it. Prof. And I had many laughs about this incident
for years to follow".
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