Ballgown Math

The Dreamy Life of an Oxford University student + Video From the Dorm Room = Heaven.

Dearest Readers, this Student-centric Post and Video is gratuit, obvs…

One of the incredible quads at St. John’s College Oxford. My divine intern Imogen is on the left and my darling daughter Ursula is next to her. They were in paradise!

While we drank mugs of hot tea and ate Digestive’s (the Oxford biscuit, if anyone is wondering), I had the ridiculously joyful experience of recording a Live with three Oxford Uni student journalists, Jojo Hynes, Quinn Burke and Bee of Bee’s Substack in Jojo’s Dorm Room at St. John’s College last week. The dorm room was exactly as it would have been in the Brideshead era: it consisted of a darling little sitting room with a desk, several squashy armchairs, a fireplace, mullioned windows overlooking the grassy quad and milky afternoon sunlight streaming in. This was adjoined by Jojo’s adorable bedroom, ditto the mullioned windows/sunlight.

The exquisite vintage postcard Quinn sent to thank me. I gave her an A+ for politeness.

We talked about everything from how to be a student journalist in Oxford now (versus Then, when I was doing it while a student there, 1988-1991), whether the ‘Oxford Bubble’ still exists; if the Epstein files are relevant to the uni journalism (a resounding Yes from the students); how fashion infiltrates the university without labels or logos, what is the student bag (turns out there is no one bag - that would be too obvious in these hallowed halls - instead, customising any bag is the defining trend) and how important sharing ballgowns is in an environment where there are ‘Formals’ four nights of the week, each college has a black tie event twice a term and a ‘Commem’ Ball every couple of years. You do the math: since the university is made up of thirty three colleges, that adds up to an awful lot of Ballgown Moments over a three year degree.

The Dorm Room: from left, Jojo Hynes, Francesca Denison, Imogen Notaro, Ursula Rowland and Quinn Burke. We had the happiest afternoon, as you can see from their adorable faces!

Here I am, below, with Quinn, thinking we are setting up the Live correctly, but in retrospect getting it wrong…

My tech skills are not the best (am improving though) so the LIVE went out sideways. SORRY! So I did a bit of a re-jig, and here it is, right way up, for you all to see. Enjoy!

I am hoping to do many more Live’s like this on location, but I am getting better camera, sound etc. sorted with the help of my brother Tom Sykes and his producer Ben Sykes who are the complete experts, as I really love filming interviews with people as well as writing them up. Bear with darlings, and apols for the slightly crapy sound quality and picture - lesson learned - but I hope you enjoy the content of what these incredibly interesting and talented students had to say. I hope to go back and speak to them all again this summer, from a punt…

All my love,

Plum XXX

The Girls roaming St. Giles, Oxford, before attending a lecture.

P.S. here I am below in an old photograph while at Oxford in 1990. I’m wearing a black sequin tube dress, which I made myself, and I’m at a party with my dear friend Simon Welch. He had the delicious floppy-haired Eton boy look (cos he did go to Eton) and I had a HUGE crush on him. So did everyone else…