Oxford

How British universities spread misery around the world

25 July 2015 9:00 am

From Greece to Kenya, the worst economic ideas come from alumni of British universities

William Waldegrave: too nice ever to have been PM

25 July 2015 9:00 am

‘Lobbying,’ writes William Waldegrave in this extraordinary memoir, ‘takes many forms.’ But he has surely reported a variant hitherto unrecorded…

Edward Thomas: the prolific hack (who wrote a book review every three days for 14 years) turned to poetry just in time

23 May 2015 9:00 am

Edward Thomas was gloomy as Eeyore. In 1906 he complained to a friend that his writing ‘was suffering more &…

My Brasenose college reunion was great (even if David Cameron didn’t turn up)

2 May 2015 9:00 am

A couple of weeks ago I returned to my old Oxford college for a ‘gaudy’ — posh, Oxford-speak for a…

A portrait of Raymond Carr as Warden of St Antony’s College, Oxford, by his son Matthew

An education to know: remembering Raymond Carr

25 April 2015 9:00 am

Laughter, bird-watching and erudition with Raymond Carr

Maybe it’s a problem when all artists are like James Blunt. But it’s worse when Labour MPs are like Chris Bryant

24 January 2015 9:00 am

What should we do with James Blunt? This is what I have been asking myself. And I am not looking…

Rugger, Robin Hood and Rupert of the Rhine: enthusiasms of the young Antonia Fraser

10 January 2015 9:00 am

Despite it being a well known fact that Antonia Fraser had earthly parents, I had always imagined that she had…

A woman who wears her homes like garments

18 October 2014 9:00 am

Depending on your approach, home is where your heart is, where you hang your hat, or possibly where you hang…

How an Oxford degree – PPE – created a robotic governing class

27 September 2014 9:00 am

Britain is now run by Oxford PPE graduates. The consequences have been disastrous

Students - bunk off your sex classes and learn on the job

27 September 2014 9:00 am

Universities are forcing undergraduates to attend sex education classes. Poor students

Radio 4 deserts the British bird. Shame on them!

6 September 2014 9:00 am

A strange coincidence on Saturday night to come back from the cinema, having seen a film about a woman fighting…

Where are the Betjemans de nos jours?

We need more opinionated English eccentrics making documentaries like, ahem, me...

6 September 2014 9:00 am

Is it just me or are almost all TV documentaries completely unwatchable these days? I remember when I first started…

Radek Sikorski’s notebook: Goose-steppers in Oxford, and a drone in my garden

30 August 2014 9:00 am

As the BA flight from Warsaw landed at Heathrow, I felt a little tremor of anxiety, though it wasn’t anything…

Peter Levi – poet, priest and life-enhancer

30 August 2014 9:00 am

Hilaire Belloc was once being discussed on some television programme. One of the panellists was Peter Levi. The other critics…

The bloody battle for the name Isis

28 June 2014 9:00 am

‘This’ll make you laugh,’ said my husband, looking up from the Daily Telegraph. For once he was right. It was…

After visiting the Cherwell Boathouse, I might spare Oxford from burning

3 May 2014 9:00 am

It is now two decades since I lived in Oxford. I was then a drunk and lonely puddle of a…

No worries: John Updike in his late fifties, on the beach at Swampscott, Mass

Up close and personal

26 April 2014 9:00 am

In recycling his most intimate encounters as fiction – including amazing feats of promiscuity in small-town New England – John Updike drew unashamedly on his own experiences for inspiration, says Philip Hensher

Dot Wordsworth: What is an astel?

26 April 2014 9:00 am

Dear old Ian Hislop was pottering around North Petherton, Somerset, on television, to talk about the Alfred Jewel, found nearby…

Front quad of Oriel College, Oxford

Oriel: the college that shaped the spiritual heart of 19th century Britain

5 April 2014 9:00 am

Oriel was only the fifth college to be founded in Oxford, in 1326. Although it has gone through periods of…

Memoirs of an academic brawler  

22 March 2014 9:00 am

It’s a misleading title, because there is nothing unexpected about Professor Carey, in any sense. He doesn’t turn up to…

If only Craig Raine subjected his own work to the same critical scrutiny he applies to others' 

7 December 2013 9:00 am

Debunking reputations is now out of fashion, says Philip Hensher, and Craig Raine should give it up — especially as he always misses the point

Have a crime-filled Christmas

30 November 2013 9:00 am

Pity the poor novelist whom commercial pressures trap within a series, doomed with each volume to diminish the stock of…

Toby Young: I'm too posh for the Tories. I should try Labour

12 October 2013 9:00 am

I’m still weighing up whether to run for Parliament, but after this week’s reshuffle I’ve concluded I’m in the wrong…

Isaac & Isaiah, by David Caute - review

21 September 2013 9:00 am

The scene is the common room of All Souls College, Oxford, in the first week of March 1963. It is…

Raymond Carr by María Jesús Gonzalez - review

31 August 2013 9:00 am

This is an unusual book: a Spanish historian writes the life of an English historian of Spain. In doing so,…