At the risk of sounding like Victor Meldrew, I can only splutter “I don’t believe it!" and "It was never like this in my day!”

What a sorry state we are in. For the first time in its 800 year history, Oxford University is resorting to police officers patrolling college quads to keep order! It is simply incredible.

Gone are the so-called “Bulldogs”, the portly gentlemen wearing bowler hats, who enforced discipline in colleges and within a four mile radius of any university building. 

So loutish is the behaviour of students these days apparently that this august university cannot cope without help from the local constabulary.

Thomas Hardy and Evelyn Waugh must be spinning in their graves.