sorry seems to be the hardest word

Dear Marianne,

John Prescott apologised for having sex with his secretary yesterday, and they lapped it up, even his bird was moved, but I can think of so many more important things which he should have apologised for. The failed education policies, the disintegrating NHS, the terrifying erosion of our human rights, the thousands of children who have been killed in Iraq. I've never really minded who in the Government is shagging who as long as they're not shagging the country, and this lot have been shagging us rotten for quite some time.
Mind you, he could apologise personally to me for the mental image I have of him naked, which I had conjured up as a consequence of his behaviour, goodness knows Prescott with clothes on was a struggle.

One way or another, we all invest a great deal of emotion in the word sorry, knowing how and when to use it is an art. Some people are really good with the word, they are quick to say sorry and they mean it. Others have to have it dragged out of them or sound insincere. I used to be awful at saying sorry - it was years of damage in a long miserable relationship - I don't want to talk about it alright!! Oops sorry. There you go, ten years ago I couldn't I have said that.

We encourage our children to say sorry, but only if they mean it, which causes problems; liberal arseholes I hear you thinking, well yes. And to prove your point, a little while ago Archie refused to say sorry to a boy he had been fighting with in the school playground. The story - so far as I can tell - was that Garry had said something rude about Archie's Mum, or as Archie put it, "He cussed me Muvver innit!" Yes, thank you Piff Doddy I said, he sighed and sucked his teeth, I did remind him that he was a blonde haired, blue eyed white middle class boy - but wot-ever.

Anyway, after the wrestling on the ground came the standing against the wall and after that they were offered their release if they said sorry. Garry gave a surly "sooorrryyyaa!", but Archie refused, because he said that it would be a lie as he wasn't sorry; so Archie lost a week of play. I beamed with pride and then told him off for fighting and then told off the school for its policy of public humiliation.
According to the school head, standing children against a wall is a strategy they use for bad behaviour, I thought it was bullying, but there you go, I'm not a dinner lady with bugger all training and a general loathing of people under twenty so what would I know.

I have a big sorry brewing, I have to produce one for the children who have been galvanised into being upbeat about our move to Brighton, despite leaving friends, schools etc. Now the buyers have gone wobbly on us and we will not be moving for another six months I fear. I may not have it in me to try to sell it again, could I cope with a third round of hoovering this year? Seriously, I really am daunted by the prospect of getting the "house straight" (as we euphamistically say to one another), it is so exhausting and often pointless, what good is cleaning, dusting and baking bread on the day if the gate is hanging off it's hinges, the crack in the side wall is two inches thick and the garage door has been grafittied with suck my nob, again! (that's "suck my nob", not "suck my nob again!")
Sorry is so hard to say, when it is just a sorry, with no follow up like "but here's a new bike" or "don't worry we can stay in auntie sandra's mansion whilst she is away for five years".

I am sorry though, sorry we have to sell, sorry we want to leave this Town, sorry I can't just buy us all another pad with my spare cash, sorry I didn't get a big job in the city, sorry I spent eight years in further education for no return, sorry it all feels so uncertain, sorry the solicitor and estate agent will make money out of our distress, sorry for having to be sorry.

I reckon there will be an awful lot of sorry saying after Tony Blair and John Prescott leave office, not by them I think, but by the next lot who want to run the country. I would consider voting for the slightly autistic Gordon Brown, or smug Jack Straw, the childlike David Milliband, even the conceited John Reid (no, not him, ever), if they apologised for all the domestic and foreign policy cock-ups of the last ten years. But they would have to mean it of course and I don't think they really do mean sorry, they mean, I will do what John Prescott did, I'll stand against the wall for my five minutes of public humiliation, I'll say "sooorrryyyaa!" and then I'll get back to "messin' wiv ya country and cussing ya Muvver up - innit!"

Rx