Do come in, and don't mind the sniffer-dogs," says Michael Beloff, as I arrive at the Trinity President's lodgings. The security measures are, unfortunately, not on my account, but for a dinner to be held that night at the college, guests to include Douglas Hurd, Sebastian Coe and a political luminary from Japan, writes Anna Melville-James.

Our original interview venue is the drawing room, primed and ready for that night's meeting of the great and good, but it seems a shame to disturb the order. So we retire to his study, a pleasantly but importantly chaotic room piled with books and papers.

It suits Michael Beloff, 57, well - a man with a gentle whirlwind of energy and twinkling, astute eyes that don't miss a trick. "Is your dictaphone not working?" he asks, as I try unsuccessfully to fiddle with it out of view.

In an instant he has produced his own, placed it on the desk and it's down to business. No time for embarrassment here, for Michael Beloff is a busy man, but also a generous one. Perhaps such calm generosity of spirit comes from knowing pretty much everyone there is to know in world of movers and shakers. Or perhaps he knows them because of it.

Whichever way, Michael Beloff, QC and President of Trinity College, is the man who knows the men and women that everyone wants to know.

He is a curious epicentre of powerful social worlds. As one of the country's leading barristers, he had been a QC for 18 years when he became President of Trinity College in 1996.

The decision, he says, was based on a practical decision to balance out the unremitting pressure and pace of the Bar with a job that was absorbing in its own right. He has combined the two ever since, lifting the profile of Trinity College considerably in the process.

But when your connections include Cherie Blair, a member of his Chambers, and key political figures past and present this is a natural by-product.

With such a firm finger on the pulse of current politics I suggest he is a central figure New Establishment figure. "I haven't been described as that before," he smiles. "What I would say is that as a result of educational and professional factors I have come into contact with many people in different walks of life, a substantial number of whom have achieved prominence."

These would include Jonathan Aitken - soon to commence his studies in theology at Oxford's Wycliffe Hall - Tariq Ali, Jeffrey Archer and William Waldegrave, plus Cambridge contemporaries Kenneth Clarke, Norman Lamont, Michael Howard and Leon Brittan, whom he met though his term as President of the Oxford Union while reading history at Magdalen College in the early 1960s.

Present political acquaintances spring from the Blair connection, through which he has got to know many people within the Labour Party.

Other worlds have yielded other fruits. His journalism for the Daily Telegraph, The Observer and New Society links him into the media and ex-colleagues who are now editors, while his work with the Court of Arbitration for Sport ensures he is on smiling terms with Sir Roger Bannister, Seb Coe and Roger Black. It's a heady list of the inner circle and we've barely scratched the surface. "There are a whole series of sections of my life, many of which don't actually interrelate, but they do relate to me and that's part of the fun of my life," he says.

But then one suspects that without the fun, things wouldn't be half as interesting to Michael Beloff.

He may wear his power like a comfortable old jumper, but his brain leaps constantly to forge energetic connections between these so-called unrelated worlds.

These might include Oxford University and the "World at Large", most visibly in the weekly college dinners, like tonight's, where he draws together the best of both experiences.

"Ever since my first term I have tried to have at least one interesting person from the outside world to dinner every week and I always have a handful of undergraduates in to have drinks with them beforehand," he says.

"I do regard part of my function as head of house to bring the college to the attention of the outside world and invite people into the college. Nobody told me I had to do that - it's just part of what I call the unwritten agenda and something I've found fun to do." Trinity would-be lawyers are treated to mind-boggling experiences, chatting to Cherie Blair or the Lord Chancellor before the ink has even dried on their first essay. It's quite a head start in life.

"Whether or not they have a head start they have fun," he counters, making it apparent that this is the main purpose. But maximising potential is definitely on the agenda.

"I really like encouraging young people to stretch themselves, and this is a marvellous job for that," he says enthusiastically.

This nose for potential extends to the Trinity admission process. I question him about a recent article that painted him as a champion of elitism and an critic of positive state school discrimination for Oxbridge, and he leaps to clarify his position.

"We look out for potential, and do recognise some people may have been taught better than others. We give a discount for that which levels the playing field. I am very much in favour of looking out for a wider catchment area and we have made genuine efforts to enlarge ours. But although I am in favour of quality from all sections of society, I am not in favour of using education as a means of social engineering to the detriment of the educational system." This sense of merit-based fair-play is echoed in his commitment to anti-discrimination. As an student he moved the motion which allowed women into the Oxford Union, and he has fought consistently against sex discrimination at the Bar, in and out of court.

In his personal life he made a conscious choice to join a London club with women members, and - he smiles broadly - most of his friends appear to be women.

Thankfully then, the upcoming 450th an- niversary of Trinity College coincides with 20 years of female student admission and will play a part in the celebrations. This anniversary is very much to the forefront of his mind and he hopes to weave Trinity's historic past into a vision for the future of the college and its students.

"I want to use it as an occasion to raise funds for projects that we can't really manage out of endowments, whether that's physical facilities or creating bursaries for people who could not otherwise afford to come to Oxford." He has himself endowed a scholarship to the college for this purpose, reflecting a typically hands-on approach to his presidency.

"As a QC you are isolated to an extent. You are working at the cutting edge of a team, absorbing what other people have prepared and crystallising it to make it sharp. This is much more of a people-thing, and I couldn't cut myself off here," he says.

As such, a typical day might involve talking to students, parents, fellow and domestic staff hosting a dinner or debating in the college debating society, which he does regularly. Indulging a life-long passion for athletics, he was also recently down at the track during the inter-university competition cheering Trinity on in a tracksuit.

This is all a far cry from the starch and formality of the Bar. But the two faces of Michael Beloff are united by a passion for challenge.

His double life has given him fresh enthusiasm for law, and he says he now relishes his court appearances. Yet back in the Dreaming Spires he throws himself into inspiring what he calls a "hyperactive" college spirit.

"I'm always trying to make certain people are getting the best out of the day," says the President tagged "most influential man in Britain". After a reflective mom- ent he finishes: "I would certainly be very distressed if someone said they thought I was remote."

Story date: Wednesday 12 April

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.