Mark Damazer (above), the former controller of BBC Radio 4 and now Master of St Peter’s College, Oxford, threw open his home on Monday night for an enjoyable party to mark the publication of a literary magazine called Ex-Pat. Most attractively produced, under the editorship of visiting student Erik Fredner and college English tutor Tessa Roynon, Ex-Pat supplies a platform for creative writing by visiting students and members of the senior common room. Its appearance is one of the events marking the 50th anniversary of the granting of full Oxford collegiate status to the former St Peter’s Hall.

Having been sent the magazine over the weekend, I was already familiar with its contents. But it gave an extra dimension to one’s enjoyment of it to hear the pieces — the poetry especially — performed by its authors, a glass of prosecco in hand, in the increasingly chilly garden at Canal House.

A particularly revealing vignette of undergraduate life was provided by Sarah Scheinman in Hogwarts is Lovely This Time of the Year. In it, we learn, “Alex was explaining, of course, why he would like to have sex with The Queen, if given the opportunity”. I loved that ‘of course’.

I was especially pleased to renew my acquaintance with the former English tutor Francis Warner, author of an affecting wartime memoir, part of which appears in the magazine as What Was It Like in Epsom?

Francis told me that the whole thing can be read on his website, which I intend to do very soon.