Name: Hanif Kureishi.

Age: 59.

Appearance: Curmudgeonly.

What does he do? He's a writer of plays, films and novels. Key themes: the British Asian experience, longing to have sex with people, and having sex with people.

Gotcha. Resonant stuff. He's also professor of creative writing at Kingston University.

A noble calling, helping others to absorb his mastery of the art. Yeah, kind of. He thinks his students are talentless and deluded.

Did he actually say that? Yeah, kind of. "It's probably 99.9% who are not talented and the little bit that is left is talent," he told an audience at the Bath literature festival on Sunday. "I can't give them talent but I can say to them: 'Look, if you do that, you're going to waste a lot of time.'"

Well, that at least sounds helpful, in a depressing way. Give me an example of what he considers a waste of time. Doing a creative writing course. "Most [teachers] are going to teach you stuff that is a waste of time for you. And a lot of students work with each other in ways that are not very helpful or creative." Asked whether he would join a course now if he were just starting out, he called the idea "madness".

Surely people can pick up the basic rules of storytelling? Kureishi doesn't think so. "A lot of my students … don't know how to make a story go … all the way through to the end without people dying of boredom in between. It's a difficult thing to do and it's a great skill to have. Can you teach that? I don't think you can."

Don't students get anything from the experience? Perhaps. Kureishi says the process helps them "to therapise themselves". Indeed, he's said in the past that creative writing courses are "the new mental hospitals".

Wouldn't actual psychotherapy be a better idea in that case? Almost certainly. And cheaper. Plus most psychotherapists don't slag off their patients at literary festivals.

That is a bonus. Although a few students do get publishing contracts in the end. Yeah, but Kureishi is not too hot on that either. Trying to make a living as a writer is "a real nightmare", he says.

OK. So to recap: he teaches something that can't be taught to people who can't learn it, and even if by some fluke they do, they'll live in poverty as a result? Not quite poverty. They could always get a job teaching creative writing …

Do say: "Roll up, roll up! Get your creative writing MAs! Just several thousand pounds a year!"

Don't say: "Isn't this just a pyramid scheme?"