THE Insider is always intrigued to watch young Oxford University students to fathom the source of their wisdom.

Watching them struggle to use a ticket machine at the railway station, or open the glass doors at the Bodleian Library is always an education.

But now it seems that some of these intellectual giants have been found wanting.

A Daily Telegraph report this week revealed some of the mistakes made by Oxford finalists who showed a “distressing” grasp of their subjects.

Mistakes include not knowing that Londonderry is in Northern Ireland, misspelling of “bizarre”, “possess”, “across” and “erupt”, and failing to realise that people in 19th century Spain would not have driven cars.

* THE Liberal Democrats are hoping one Oxford student will not make such basic mistakes when he launches his political career in May.

Undergraduate Robin McGhee has been selected to add a very special something to the Lib Dem line-up at the Oxford City Council elections, having captained his college on University Challenge and sat in the big black chair on Mastermind, specialising in the music of Led Zeppelin.

Unfortunately St Anne’s crashed out of the first round of University Challenge, and Mr McGhee came last in his first round Mastermind heat. The omens are not good.

* COTSWOLD Life magazine bills itself as “celebrating all the finer things in life.” But a decision to automatically carry top trending Twitter feeds on its website’s home page brought it down to somewhat baser pleasures this week.

Popular among Twitter users was a request from a confused contributor to Mumsnet, asking whether “Center Parks” was a euphemism for a particular sexual practice, and so the topic flashed up on Cotswold Life website.

That either concept – a holiday park or its metaphoric tenor – had been heard of by civilised Cotswolds folk was a revelation.

* ALSO having website problems this week was train operator First Great Western. On Tuesday morning, a message popped up warning that the 6.44am from Hereford to London Paddington – the Cathedrals Express – would be a whopping 573 minutes late.

Even by Worst Late Western standards, a delay of nine-and-a-half hours on a key commuter train was really going some.

It in fact turned up at Reading an hour late, having been diverted via Swindon due to signalling problems in Worcester, but as a result it missed all its stops along the Cotswold Line in west Oxfordshire and its call at Oxford.

* BEING bi-lingual can open many doors in life – including the entrance to the high-security docks at Oxford Crown Court.

Professional interpreters are a common sight in the justice system and most them work at break-neck speed to turn English legalese into a defendant’s native tongue.

But earlier this month one fortunate interpreter had no such hardship.

The Vietnamese translator waited patiently from 10am until her client’s case was called into court at 3pm. And there she remained, shoulder to shoulder with the defendant, in total silence for the next 15 minutes.

The only words she uttered were those of her oath to faithfully translate anything needed.

Nice work if you can get it. She’ll be back next month for the defendant’s next hearing.