The jibe about my “reactionary politics” in the letters column of The Oxford Times last month was a source of much amusement to me and to those who know me. It was as wide of the mark as Sir Tony Baldry’s accusation a year or so back that I was homophobic, a damaging (possibly actionable) claim which I did not respond to at the time but which one of my pals characterised as comparable to calling the Chief Rabbi anti-semitic.

The correspondent impertinent enough to presume knowledge of my politics did so on the basis of my dislike of the Guardian. This, as it happens, has nothing to do with its politics but everything to do with its hypocrisy. A recent headline in the Press Gazette succinctly captures one blatant example of this: “Shock: Guardian blogger not paid for piece railing against unpaid internships.” The Guardian never was much good at paying for anything, as I remember from the days when they took freelance pieces from us.

Then there is its preachiness over all things Green, while its pages are packed with advertisements for large, expensive, gas-guzzling cars. A thing overlooked concerning the paper’s new columnist, the odious liar Christopher Huhne, is that his problems with the law began with a speeding offence. Don’t we all know that a major contribution to saving the planet — a matter of deep concern to him, he’s always telling us — comes in driving with your pedal to the metal.

Another recent correspondent to The Oxford Times was unnecessarily huffy, I thought, over my restaurant review at the Lords of the Manor at Upper Slaughter. To whom, she demanded, had I addressed my observation concerning our £69-a-head three-course dinner, that this “was luxury you can afford”? (It was, in part, to people who might have remembered the Cyril Lord carpet advertisement and been amused by my allusion to it.) The reader supposed it was “certainly not to the families who struggle to feed their entire families for a week on less than £69”. In this she was correct, since families feeding families is not a concept I readily understand.

On the assumption that she believes my addressee to be the member of the family with charge of that sub-£69 budget, she is correct again. I hardly suppose that she or he would consider buying a newspaper when funds are so short. The fact that I receive no reproachful letters from people on hard times, but only from better-off types feeling offended on their behalf, speaks for itself.

No, the people for whom I was writing were regular readers of The Oxford Times, a group I have come to know extremely well in 40 years of dealing with them. Of modest means and more (like most Guardian readers), they are people who might feel very tempted to enjoy an evening at the Lords of the Manor. They might also like to try Carole Bamford’s newly opened Wild Rabbit at Kingham, a place scarcely less upmarket. I had lunch there on Sunday, which will be featured in next week’s restaurant column.

You might note that I am sticking up two fingers to our correspondent’s challenge to me to fill the review slot with pieces about “well-cooked two-course meals” costing £10 or less. These might, I think, prove a little boring for readers and for me.

Please do not think that I am a stranger to cheap pub food. I eat at bargain-basement Wetherspoon at least once a week, in Oxford or elsewhere. The near blanket exclusion of this excellent company makes me question the criteria used by the editors of the newly published Good Pub Guide 2014 (Ebury Press, £15.99). But their general soundness of judgment can be gauged from their three top Oxford entries. The Rose and Crown in North Parade, the Punter in Osney and the Bear in Alfred Street are all long-established favourites of mine. At the Punter you can get a brilliant lunch most days for a fiver. This is cheaper and better than staying at home.