ABSTRACT
Oxford is a collegiate university. I had chosen to apply to Wadham College. In part, this was because of the very high reputation of one of its chemists: R. J. P. Williams, alongside his gifted colleague C. S. G. Phillips, had published a wonderful text on inorganic chemistry [1]. I found it to be sheer intellectual delight. It was also very hard going. For that reason, I had made a mental note to try to avoid any questions about inorganic chemistry during the interview and instead concentrate on what was for me the relative safety of organic chemistry.
