There are those moments. As much as you may love the antiquated iron gates of colleges or the way the setting sun hits the Radcam, later and later into the evening as the days get longer. I am sure we have all experienced how the dreaming spires can also dark shadows. How Oxford – with its tutorials, competitive extra-curriculars or impending exams – can be very much like that charming iron gate; beautiful and ornate, until you have to deal with the grunt work of pushing it open.

I personally found that there is no better rescue from this fast-paced mania that makes up an eight-week term, then to enter into the much more banal. Sometimes, wandering towards Summertown, Botley or Headington simply doesn’t cut it when you know the sky-line of the scholarly looms a few miles away. So welcome, to the safe haven that is a 12 minute train ride south of Oxford. Welcome, to Didcot.

Firstly, one can revel in the deliciously ordinary. Didcot is home to the humbly ‘vintage’, in an age where the the chicly outdated is given the space to shout at the top of its lungs. A shoddily stitched landscape of wooden-posted take- aways, butchers and an old-school everything-and-anything shop named ‘Grandma’s Pantry’. Of course, it isn’t just the quiet but quaint of such non-descript towns that revitalizes my capacity to be satisfied with the unextraordinary in life. One of the best parts of Didcot are the still shops that line the narrow, brick high street framing the railway line perpendicular to it – built in the late 1990s. Somewhere over the rainbow, far from Cornmarket which is usually filled with a bustling throng making its way to view some famous cranny of Oxford.

The landscape presents the hackneyed as a possibility to look closer and find the exceptional. And it can be found with little effort. In a quiet town, one can often discover a hundred voices with a story to tell. My brief visit to Didcot proffered me the chance to hear the tale of two brothers with philosophical differences, split by a ceiling. Above stood one brother’s ‘Dental Practice’ and below the other’s ‘Garage’. A tale of feud and rivalry in Didcot. This is one of many such tales I’m sure.

It’s not only the inexplicably prosaic that offers a remarkability that is gentler on the senses. The town itself has an undiscovered richness to offer in terms of culture and history. Didcot’s Railway Centre is definitely worth visiting (I’m being deadly serious). It’s not only informative, but also aesthetically reminiscent of a long-gone era. A well-designed set to the play of the imagination, presenting the history of trains from the establishment of the Great Western Railway. It, in itself, stands testament to the enriching potential of studying the everyday. What truly stuck out to me as a hidden gem, though, was the Cornerstone Art Centre located a 2 minute walk from the train station. I am honestly surprised this hasn’t been snapped up as a new ‘edgy’ space for Oxford f -budding student theatre. It also has much to offer itself ranging from critically acclaimed productions of ‘Shakespeare untold’ to art exhibitions and a weekly film club, as well as various free classes and workshops.

These classes and workshops offer a framework for the otherwise occupied to have an unproductive dabble in the arts. I, on my adventure to Didcot, stumbled upon a free life form class where I felt I could take a piece of graphite a draw pretty much anything at all. This was a class presenting work from artists’ that were also working mums or a geology academics – and once again I sensed the comforting relief that the ‘boring’ can still produce the beautiful.

It’s not strictly an ‘Oxford’ thing, in fact it’s a San Francisco thing, but nuzzled right next to a delightful vintage book and print shop on St Michael’s street stands Mission Burrito, where the queue of hungry customers spills out of the little red burrito bar at lunchtime just as the fillings of my burritos are often prone to spill out from their too small tortilla encasing.

Perhaps on a breezy evening, the dandy would ponder to himself as he strolled: “What can I don atop my pretty tête on this dark night?” When walking back late from one’s favourite establishment on Park End Street, what better article to have up one’s sleeve than a hat? Of course, with a floppy bucket hat or a baseball cap, this indeed would be possible – perhaps saving you £2 on putting an extra item in the cloakroom. However, these hats have become all too common in recent years and months, and, sadly, these articles can only really be worn these days ironically. The glimpse of a young, misguided chap wearing some ‘wavey’ printed bucket hat or a Yankees snap-back is a truly sorry sight.

Much wiser is the man who pays the extra cloakroom fee and can walk home in gleeful bliss with his saffron yellow bowler, furnished with an azure parrot feather, poised nonchalantly upon his glossy barnet – those two pounds will make him feel a thousand more!

As I have previously asserted on the issue of layering, the important consideration for chapeauage lies not in wearing a topper for its practical merit, but rather for its fashionable usefulness. You don’t want to wear your sou’wester because it’s raining; you want to wear your sou’wester because the dandelion yellow clashes beautifully with your purple cable-knit jumper.

A hat can really complete an outfit. Many formal halls require suits to be worn. If you’ve got a pin-stripe number lurking in the depths of the wardrobe, why not get out your fedora? Twin it with a sinister violin case and the kitchen staff will give you all the custard pies you like. Alternatively, if you’re going down to support the college rugby team, why not complement those wellies and barbour with a panama? Whirl it around your head in a great, looping circle as you belt out one of the college’s chants for a really engaged appearance.

Millinery, of course, comes in all manner of forms. Some hats have surprising and valuable surplus uses. While I wear my green paisley bandana primarily because I’m trying to give off a whiff of my virility, it also keeps my floppy fringe out of my eyes. At the same time, though when I pluck my straw boater from my hat-stand I am motivated by the desire to look sophisticated and elegant at my great-aunt’s third wedding by fusing the hat with my piped blazer, I can also slip the telephone numbers that I get from her friends in the orange ribbon of the boater. It really is a win-win.

With bonnetry, the world really is your oyster. Take inspiration from across the pond with a ten-gallon or perhaps a sombrero to add an element of the New World to your outfit. Whatever happens, make sure your titfer is bold and adventurous. Plumage is always welcome. There are few rules with hats – just remember the words of Frank, Bing and Dean in Robin and the Seven Hoods: “A hat’s not a hat, till it’s tilted”.