TELEVISION presenter Giles Coren has hit out at an Oxford University graduate suing his former college for his second-class degree by saying 'terrible teaching is what makes Oxford special'.

Brasenose College alumnus Faiz Siddiqui is suing his alma mater for £1m because he claims 'apallingly bad' teaching in his third year (16 years ago) led to his getting a second-class degree in modern history instead of the first he had hoped for.

This in turn led to him not becoming a top-class lawyer as he had dreamed.

Read the full story here.

But now Oxford graduate Giles Coren has hit back at Mr Siddiqui saying that 'appalling bad' teaching is what made his time at Oxford 'special'.

Writing in his Times column today, Mr Coren said: "One goes to Oxford precisely because the teaching is rubbish, nothing is compulsory, tutorials are optional after first week and nobody ever, ever talks about careers."

He continued: "If you want to be taught and pass exams and become a lawyer, don't you go to a red brick? Or Cambridge? Oxford is for drinking and playing tennis and nicking books out of the Bod under your cricket jumper and lobbing them at punting tourists from Magdalen Bridge.

"If you ask me, Mr Siddiqui got the wrong end of the stick altogether with his tertiary education and is now just embarassing himself."

Mr Coren went on to say that, despite himself getting a first class degree, he is still a 'total moron' with sawdust between his ears.