"I had a rolling of the eyes and old-fashioned looks when I recently asked who Cheryl Cole was. Likewise when someone at work told me that they'd been to see Rihanna (correct spelling?) and I asked who she was (assuming that she was a mutual friend!)."

I know. I don't know any of these new artists. Even when I do, I can't name a song they've done. Their music does to my brain what artificial food does to the body. There's no nourishment there.

And you're right that when you ask people what they like about that performer, you get about every manner of answer except something like: "It's superbly written and performed by an artist so innovative that he/she must hover on the edge of madness in an attempt to express a feverish, ecstatic vision that changes the way we look at country/hip-hop/pop." And you're never going to hear that because people don't listen to that stuff for any such reason. They like it because the lyrics reminded them of the first time they broke up with someone or because it has a "nice beat" (so does my drum machine--thousands of them--but nobody's rushing over to have it sign a recording contract).

Does that make me a musical snob? Some would say yes and others no. But, again, I feel I am entitled not to like this or that genre. Some said ridicule is part of the snobbery and I think that may be correct. I remember about 20 years ago, I was in a studio doing some classical stuff (I am classically trained, after all) and as I was packing up to leave these two rap guys walk in and start talking to the engineer. He liked jazz. They asked me what I liked and I said classical because I was doing almost exclusively classical stuff at the time. They immediately started making fun of classical music. I just stood there and looked at them. I don't like rap but I didn't make fun of it to their faces. When they left, the engineer was furious. "They had no right!" he said. "There's nothing wrong with classical music. They're full of shit. I like classical music way more than rap."

So snobs can come in all genres, races and walks of life. It's not a one-way street.

We're not all going to like the same thing. But there should hopefully be some overlap that we can agree on rather than, "If you don't like what I like then you're a joke."