It seems that I’ve reached the age where people who were more or less contemporaries at university are starting to make bigger names for themselves on the national stage.

Kitty Ussher (two years ahead of me at Balliol) has been elected MP for Burnley.

Dominic Sandbrook (one year below me at Balliol) received a rather unfavourable book review in the Guardian yesterday. The problem is whether Dom can ever match his breakthrough earlier work – Antebellum Parasexuality.