My worst nightmare

I was delivering my first conference paper as a postgraduate student, and I had prepared my presentation in script form. As I was reading it, I started to stumble over the words. When I tried to say the phrase "process in flux", the word "flux" came out the way I least intended. I have since learnt to control my nerves and never to read from a prepared script.

Nathan Abrams is a lecturer in modern US history at Southampton University.