Nick Hilton is just back from interviewing the author PD James

I am writing this column on a train home from London, where I have been interviewing 93-year-old crime writer PD James for Cherwell, the university’s student newspaper. It’s fair to say this marks something of a departure from my normal Wednesdays.

But, now that term has finally started after the interminable summer, this mish-mash scheduling of extra-curriculars and my academic work is inevitable. Throughout my interview I found myself surreptitiously checking my watch, terrified that I might miss the 12.50 from Paddington, and, consequently, my 14.00 tutorial. The adrenalin is unbelievable.

Editing a student newspaper is, by and large, a thankless task. I’m neither remunerated for my time and energy, nor reimbursed for the endless cups of coffee. Not to mention the fact that the recognition we get from our ever-diminishing, readership is negligible.

There is a dream — promoted by shows like Lewis where student journalists seem to live like rock stars — that there is a captive audience for our salacious scoops and breaking news.

But the reality is that our most salacious of scoops are watered down because of legal concerns, and our breaking news is usually ‘stolen’ from The Oxford Times website.

It’s a grim and grotty existence that halves the amount of time I can spend on my The Taming of the Shrew essay.

But, bombing through rain-streaked Slough, there are also perks. My day today, which will involve running, through the foul weather, from the train station to a seminar room in a mere 10 minutes, has all the good things about Oxford wrapped up in a single, colourful California roll.

Sure, my reading lists, collections, essays, tutorials, lectures, coursework…etc. move with the pace of a pre-global warming glacier, but there’s something quite relentless about the rest of the experience.

The sweat of my morning’s exertions weighs heavy on my herringbone-patterned jumper. But for the first-year students, and those whose impressions of our university life is derived from the grandiose libraries, 2,000-word essays must seem all consuming.

I feared my tutor just as much as the next innocent victim, and wouldn’t have dared to pull a stunt like holidaying in Holland Park on the morning of an important tutorial.

But with age comes wisdom (leaving me, one suspects, about 30 years less wise than those of you reading my column) and I have realised that university is about seizing those small opportunities that won’t present themselves in 10 years’ time.

When do investment bankers meet Ian Rankin? Where do city traders get lectured by Geoffrey Hill? What even is management consultancy?! It’s all privileged, and undoubtedly cultural elitism, but branching your Oxford experience out beyond formal hall, the Taylorian and TSK is essential.

Last week, George Galloway was approached at the Oxford Union by a student waving an Israeli flag, incensed by comments that he had made to an Israeli student in a previous visit to Oxford.

My meeting with PD James might not have been an attempt to prove a political point (she’d doubtless have chewed me out if I had tried such a stunt) but the opportunity to confront heroes and villains is what makes the student experience in Oxford.

Not the Arden edition of The Taming of the Shrew, which is staring at me jealously from beside my computer.