In my youth in the corrupt capitals of European libertine diplomacy, I attended for some years the International School of Geneva.  Here I will not dwell on my attempts to subvert the plots of Transnational Organized Crime, but rather to remember a day we were called to assembly. 

On the Grande Boissière campus that I attended is a large and attractive Greek amphitheatre, called, selon la façon subtile des européens, the “Greek Theatre”.  Normally this was used as a hang-out by students eating lunch, plotting coups, pulling hair, sharing needles; I especially remember endless games of soccer played on the floor of the theatre, using tennis balls, and the mouths of the stairs as goals.  It is a trick to kick a tennis ball with force and accuracy.  Adapting myself to this particular version of the game undoubtedly ruined my skills for the larger, internationally-recognized version of footy.

On the occasion of this solemn and unprecedented assembly, the pompous ass who was the headmaster told us that Indira Gandhi had that day been assassinated, and as she had attended the school decades before, we were to have a minute of silence.  Now this was hardly the most tenuous of links, but it still smacked of self-aggrandizement.  Benazir Bhutto probably deserves some moments of silence herself, and hopefully those who devote a few thoughts to her life and death today do so not just because of institutional attachments.