The title of the book above is an insult in itself, of course, since we in Oxford are sufficiently confident in our supremacy to admit to the existence of no rival. The Great Rivals? There are many here who would decline to say that Cambridge is even great.

There are some diehards who would not even say Cambridge. In a favourite North Oxford pub of mine (OK, it’s the Rose and Crown) I have been obliged to shell out a number of times for using the ‘C’ word rather than ‘The Other Place’. Since the receptacle for the fines doubles as a swear box, I often think it prudent to stick a couple of quid in before ordering a first drink.

Insulting or not, The Great Rivals is well worth the £4.99 being asked for it by Pitkin Guides (an unfortunate name, incidentally, for its associations with that appalling flat-capped squirt once played by Norman Wisdom). This is principally because it supplies so many instances of the ways in which our university outclasses theirs.

There is the number of visitors, for example. We see nine million a year; they a mere four million. Partly this is a function of the route from London we are on, which also takes in Windsor and, later, Blenheim and Stratford. Where do you go on a trip to Cambridge? Luton or Harlow?

Also we have far more to look at in the way of architecture — 197 listed buildings as opposed to a measly 63. Besides King’s College Chapel, it’s hard to think of a Cambridge building of national renown.

And what about famous people? Oxford knocks Cambridge to six in the matter of prime ministers — 25 to date and an amazing 13 of them from Christ Church, two fewer than the total for Cambridge which has not seen one since Stanley Baldwin in 1937. As for Archbishops of Canterbury, we exactly double Cambridge’s 17.

Among divines in general, Oxford again outguns the opposition, with Sir Thomas More, Cardinal Wolsey, John Wycliffe, John and Charles Wesley and Cardinal Newman, to its credit. Erasmus is, admittedly, a big name for Cambridge; ditto, Hugh Latimer, Thomas Cranmer and Nicholas Ridley, all of whom perished in the flames in Oxford during Queen Mary’s reign.

Science has famously been more the preserve of Cambridge: their impressive list is headed by Sir Isaac Newton and also includes Charles Darwin, Alan Turing, Francis Crick and James Watson. Oxford can answer with Robert Hooke, Edmond Halley, Edwin Hubble and Dorothy Hodgkin.

Where Cambridge emphatically does win is in a category where it would surely have preferred to lose — spies. They can boast loads, from Sir Francis Walsingham and Christopher Marlowe, to Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess Kim Philby and Donald Maclean. Can you think of one from Oxford?

Cambridge also wins in the area of comedy, with Peter Cook and John Cleese leading the attack. The Great Rivals’ writer Ross Reyburn is wrong, though, to credit Cleese and Fawlty Towers co-writer Connie Booth with “Pretentious, moi?” This was lifted from The Muppet Show and Miss Piggy — surely an Oxford gal manquée.