Blame the schools. Blame the Government. Blame New Labour. Blame yourselves.

I am not responsible. I am a product of your society. I am nurtured to be of this nature.

For I am a narcissist.

And this, reader, is because you and the country you have helped to create have made me so. You have made a generation of us.

Dr Carol Craig said so. Good old Dr Carol Craig.

Never heard of her? You should have. She's the chief executive of the Centre for Confidence and Well Being in Glasgow.

Never heard of that? Should have again. It's being funded by the British taxpayer.

Don't know what it does? Me either but, according to the website, it "advances the education of the public in the field of cognitive psychology, particularly in relation to cognitive processes and techniques to enhance problem solving and increase optimism and life-satisfaction."

Or – let me simplify that – it wastes money on self-important nonsense.

And then it has the cheek to accuse me of being narcissistic.

I guess psychologists like Dr Craig don't understand irony. What they do understand, however, are sweeping generalisations.

To wit: schools and parents who insist on offering continual praise have created an "all about me" mentality across Britain, says Dr Craig.

And this, she adds, is bad. Which must be brilliant for the centre because if there's a national crisis about over-confidence, then who better to research it than, say, the Centre for Confidence and Well Being?

So, narcissists, right? They don't make good partners, they don't make good parents, they don't make good employees.

They don't make good anything. Although, by nature, any egotist worth his salt would disagree.

Take me. I must make a good something, right? I make good copy, for instance. I make great copy. Won't someone just tell me I make great copy? Or tell me it's bad copy. Just talk about my copy. Talk about me. Me. ME.

This, reader, I'm afraid, is not irony.

But – here's the crux – it's a personality flaw. A defect.

So, when I'm recognised on the street and get told I'm a Small Town Charlie (correct) I still walk away feeling like a Big Time Hustler (fallacy). And when I get an email saying what I've written is rubbish, I just presume the correspondent is deluded.

But this defect is mine. It doesn't describe my friends (not all of them, anyway), nor my colleagues, nor half the people I know.

A generation of narcissists haven't been created by school or by parents or by you.

A few exist – just as a few have existed since the days of, well, Narcissus – because humans are not perfect.

Some have stupid egos. And some make stupid generalisations.