Did Annie take her own life ―or was she killed? Students got down to brass tacks in the Crime Scene Investigation session yesterday, as they learned from trained forensic lab experts how to dust a scene for prints, to analyse and log evidence, and most importantly, to let the story tell itself through the hard facts alone. Students were perceptive in recognising how easy it is to editorialise ―did Annie have two phones because she was a criminal mastermind with a double life and an increasingly unsupportable drug habit? Or did she just travel a lot and need a phone that worked in other countries? After solving the case put before them (daughter Gemma did it, frustrated at having her allowance cut off), students were led through the crime scenes of two famous cases: the murder of Reeva Steenkamp by paralympian Oscar Pistorius, and the still unsolved case of JonBenet Ramsey.

CSI was just one of the three Insight Masterclasses on offer in St Hugh’s yesterday. Students also got the chance to practise their interview skills on one another in the Journalism masterclass, and hold spiders, snakes and a millipede called Mildred in the Zoolab.

The day of diverse diversions continued, as students heard spine-chilling stories from Oxford’s history of grim martyrdoms on Broad Street, and “Things” abiding in Trinity chapel, on a ghost tour of the city. Cute took over from scary and spooky as students played host to some birds of prey ―including an unutterably adorable baby owl (or owlet, if you prefer).