As those few regular readers of my rarely updated blog would know, I am something of a snob. I like nothing better of a lazy Sunday afternoon than a few productive hours of sneering at my inferiors.

Like any good snob, however, I have my particular areas of expertise. In my case it's the written word.

I can't abide people who can't, or even worse won't spell words correctly. leet-speak is fingernails down the melodramatic chalkboard of my soul. People who use unnecessary contractions in text messages are equally likely to earn my ire - it's been well more than five years since phones have had predictive text. Don't be so unbelievably lazy and learn to use it!

But that's just pedantry. Where it reaches snobbery, where the metaphorical upturned nose is presented to the shameless hussies and manwhores of linguistic impurity, is in the extent of a pose.

You see, there's a certain pleasure that any well-developed psyche experiences when they decide to be smug. Smug is good; it's that feeling of wellbeing you get when you know that the barbarians are knocking at the gates but you know that you won't go down without a pipe in hand and either the promise or the reality of a smoking jacket and a moustache to sardonically twirl.

There's an exclusivity to snobbery that can know no bounds. You can, on any kind of a whim, exclude whomever you like from your list of adequacy (your colleagues are only ever adequately snobbish, as all judgement is based on yourself).

Music snobs often combine their snobbery with genre or timeline snobbery. For example, they might only listen to grunge music of the early 1990s that is uninfluenced by Nirvana. They are, in a word, particularly insufferable.

They are, however, possessed of such a great amount of self-love that their masturbatory delusions could provide sufficient annoyed power to end the oil crisis in one fell if somewhat drolly expressed swoop, if only the technology is developed to harness it.

However there's more than just the opportunity to be smug. Snobbery also involves a kind of twisted expertise. It's the practice of deception for no greater aim than self-aggrandrisement. As I have made clear in previous discussions, honesty is for chumps. Snobs take things a step further.

We are all familiar with the idea of an expert, someone who has a particular gift and pool of knowledge about something. Snobs are like experts. They believe they know a great deal about something, which is the cause of their snobbery. The key word is believe. Snobbery is about belief, just like the Tooth Fairy and freedom.

To be an effective snob is to have such a powerful sense of self-righteousness that your words, your actions, your very presence convince others of your expertise. You are, in a nutshell, a walking lie, a corruption upon the earth, a piece of grit around which the universe creates a beautiful yet opaque pearl.

This is the greatest advantage of snobbery, and the reason I encourage its development in all my worst friends. By being a snob you contribute to the complexity of the human race. And no matter what you might think about honesty, about right and wrong, about human niceties, even about the benefits of a good conversation between rational people, making life more complex is what humanity is all about.

So next time you're inclined to mock someone for being a snob, rethink your perspective. They are doing you a great favour and feeling great in the process. Isn't it time you took their lead and did your bit to fill the earth with just a little more bullshit?