Rachel Johnson

John Prescott's plans to erect hundreds of thousands of new homes on - I'm going to use that disgusting word - 'brownfield' sites has not, so far as I know, caused a further outbreak of nimbyism in my neighbourhood. In Notting Hill, there is an embarras of new building already. Aubrey Square in W8, by St James Homes, is one of several 'high-end' developments nearing completion. I've wanted to snoop round this for ages. One, it forced the closure of my old tennis club, Campden Hill (that didn't bother me, though I did resent being told off for not wearing 'regulation tennis socks' by a spotty male member of the committee - you know who you are).

'You once said something I remind myself of at least twice a day,' Alan Rusbridger said to my excitement, over our lunch at Fl.

Things have to come a pretty pass, eh, when an institution as self-consciously august as the University of Oxford has to headhunt a perjuring philanderer to be its next chancellor; even if the felon happens to be the President of the United States (there are no former presidents, of course, just as alumnae of St Paul's girls' school are Paulinas till their dying day). Not since the Albanians asked C.B. Fry, the English cricketer, to be their king has there been so dismal an admission of the lack of home-grown talent. So whom do we have so far? Are any of them going to set the world on fire? The in-house candidate is the distinguished lawyer Lord Neill of Bladen, a former warden of All Souls, former vice-chancellor of Oxford, and former sleaze watchdog.

Tom Hill, a 19-year-old Marlburian (and son of parents with deep pockets, we hope), is suing the Oxford, Cambridge and RSA exam board (commonly known as OCR) that marked his A-levels for damages of up to £100,000. Now here's an odder thing. If many more follow suit - and there is evidence they will - Oxbridge would have a good case for countersuing the Secretary of State for Education for undermining its own balance sheet and damaging its reputation. Isn't the law fun! Yes. Believe it or not, Oxford and Cambridge are enjoying what the City calls a 'Ratner moment', unique in their long and gilded history, and all because the introduction and marking of the new A-levels was an absolute horlicks.