It was only afterwards, once his parents had gone, that he locked the door to his turret room and lay face down on his bed, ignoring the knocks of further enthusiastic students from his staircase, calling to introduce themselves. He had arrived at New College, Oxford University; he had arrived in this venerable centre of learning under the pretext of being academically gifted, and he was terrified that he would be found out for what he really was. A mediocrity. A run-of-the-mill, middling Mr Average, as his three Bs at A level testified. Whenever he had been asked about his disappointing grades, he had asserted with much bravado that after he had got his unconditional offer from Oxford, he had let his studies slip, and been too busy with the band over the summer to concentrate on his exams. He lied so fluently that he could almost believe it himself; almost, but not quite. The truth was that he had worked like a demon towards his exams. It was true that the monotony of constant revision had been relieved by playing a few gigs, but they were nothing terribly strenuous. In fact, after he had spent fourteen hours studying with nothing but strong brewed tea to sustain him, a forty-minute set in a local pub or club was a walk in the park. The terrifying truth was, he had worked as hard as he possibly could, and still got three Bs; the terrifying truth was that they were the grades he deserved.

If he had to explain how, despite his obvious mediocrity, he had managed to get an unconditional offer in the first place, he would have described it as a combination of dumb luck and plagiarism. During the Oxford entrance exams, he was lucky enough to get papers with questions that matched those he had already prepared over the previous summer as part of his revision. For the actual interview, he had crammed a year’s worth of Economist and FT articles, and found that he was able to expound other peoples’ words and opinions with much more confidence than his own when it came to meeting the politics and economics tutors. He had not done so well in his philosophy interview, as he was expected to think for himself rather than quote knowledgeably. But he had the good luck that this particular philosophy tutor was also involved in a scheme which supported black and Asian candidates, and so he suspected that he had probably benefited from positive discrimination.