Sorry, but apologies really are the work of the Devil

Saying ‘sorry’ is mostly wicked and usually irrelevant, says Anna Blundy. People should not be allowed to dump their inner shame so easily

There is no end, of course, to all this human erring. And we know forgiveness is divine — look at Nelson Mandela. But, for the non-divine of us, genuine forgiveness is largely impossible. This is, in my view, because most apologies are so insincere and self-serving. And it is to the, frankly, Satanic act of apologising that I would like to turn my attention. ‘Oh, I slept with someone else. Sorry.’ ‘I hit my sister over the head with a cello bow. Sorry.’ ‘I embezzled the Christmas club money. Sorry.’ ‘I hired five prostitutes and snorted loads of cocaine. Sorry.’ See? ‘Sorry’ is almost always empty, manipulative rubbish that serves the sorrysayer and cripples the sorree.

The only circumstances in which ‘sorry’ is remotely acceptable are those in which the hurt caused is genuinely accidental or unforeseeable.