Experimental Psychology lived up to its name yesterday as students learned about the early years of the field, when psychologists rather overstepped ethical boundaries in the name of research and the advancement of human knowledge. Students were treated to tales of the infamous Milgram experiment of 1961 (inspired by the atrocities carried out by the Nazi rank and file during the Holocaust, Yale professor Stanley Milgram investigated the effect of authority figures on an individual’s capacity for cruelty to others), and the eminently creepy Little Albert experiment of 1920, which left poor eight-month-old Albert with several artificially manufactured phobias: of rabbits, dogs, and even Santa’s fluffy white beard.

Those in Politics and International Relations took on equally weighty subject material as they discussed the ongoing tension between the USA and North Korea― although a moment of levity can always be found on the President’s Twitter page.

Punting along Oxford’s rivers in the afternoon, students showed their competitive streak. They engaged in an impromptu regatta, with losers to pay the forfeit of an embarrassing act in the talent show next Thursday. In the ‘Art and Ice’ tour, students were rewarded for their impressive sketches of the Radcliffe Camera with the best ice-cream Oxford can offer, at student favourite G&D’s.

Back at the Manor, students took advantage of the evocative environs by playing a round of Mafia. This Yarnton-themed affair featured the Matron of the Manor, a ghost who has haunted the halls since her posting there as a nurse during the English Civil War― the story goes that, far from healing her patients, she would secretly kill them off in the dead of night. We wonder whether Cullinan’s novel The Painted Devil (recently revisioned in film by Sofia Coppola) took inspiration from this tale!