AS AN Oxford graduate (some 60 years ago now) I was amused by Chris Loder’s apt if unintended reference to his leader (a well off Oxford graduate) when he describes Oxford as a place that ‘facilitates well off out of touch youngsters to live in a fantasy world with an expectation that the rest of the working population will give them space for their adolesence’.

There has always been - and probably still is - a very small minority of privileged Oxford undergraduates who fit this description and expect the world to owe them a living.

Apart from that it would be good if Chris could check his facts before writing his weekly column. The decision to take down a portrait of the Queen was not made by Magdalen College or even by its undergraduate students.

According to the BBC report it was a decision about how they wanted to decorate their Middle Common Room made by a small group (17 in total) of mature (not adolescent) graduate students studying for doctorates or other higher qualifications.

Many of these graduate students come from overseas and might quite naturally be less interested in having their communal space decorated with a portrait of the British head of state.

DAVID PERETZ

Long Bredy