Paul Little: No excuse for this behaviour

We are in the middle of an epidemic Chronic Excuse Syndrome. Photo / Getty Images

No column this week. Sorry, had a lot on. Meant to tell you, but I had to take the cat to the vet.

Also, my grandfather died — six months ago, I know, but it really threw me and I'm still catching up.

I have just been flat-out all week. Been having trouble sleeping. Had a big night after the game. Mum was going to look after the kids for me but her car broke down.

I've just moved house so I've been a little bit distracted. And I think I've had that thing that's going around. Plus the only time the colourist could see me was right on my deadline.

I should get to your column soon, though. Just got some other stuff I have to do first. Not that I'm apologising, really. Who does anymore? That would just be weird. A key feature of the contemporary excuse is the almost total absence of genuine regret.

Everyone says they're "really sorry" but no one on either side of the exchange expects that to be believed.

And don't they make a lot of them?

We are in the midst of an epidemic of Chronic Excuse Syndrome. It's a new way of being, an existential strategy for getting through life without relying on such old-fashioned tactics as competence and responsibility.

Some excuses, usually the more elaborate ones, are mini-epics of human suffering.

My wife waited several weeks for a pair of slippers she ordered online to arrive from a small trader. When my wife finally managed to get in touch, the errant cobbler explained: "I've been really sick and the glue makes me ill so I couldn't make them."

So she sent her a pair she'd already made that were the wrong size.

Similarly, a friend of mine was at a restaurant with a group in which everyone was served their dessert except one person whose dessert still hadn't arrived after an hour. "I'm sorry, we had a table of 20," she was told.

That encounter exemplifies a new wriggle that has come with CES — not only have we lost any sense that we are supposed to fulfil our obligations, we don't even acknowledge that we haven't fulfilled them unless we're forced to.

As for offering a genuine apology or attempting to make amends — how very 1990s that would be.

Other social phenomena play a part, particularly increased and increasingly accepted drug use. I'm sure "I was doing something that took longer than I thought it would" is a euphemism for "I've been on the P". And "If you want to contact me I probably won't be around after about 6pm" is 100 per cent a euphemism for "I'll be too far into my first bottle by then". As is "I missed your message because I had to leave the office early".

And "I didn't see your email, sorry. It must have gone into my spam folder" is a euphemism for "I don't expect you to believe me for a moment".

Of course, it's impolite and futile to point out that an excuse is a lie. People have lost sight of the crucial notion that saying you will do something carries with it the obligation to do it. So lying is normalised and arse-covering trumps fronting up. Inevitably this spills over into other areas of private or public life.

Society will be vastly more pleasant and productive when honesty and a sense of responsibility are restored to their previous status as attitudes you could expect to encounter on a daily basis.

Anyway, I have to be somewhere, sorry. But I will definitely have a column for you next week. Unless something comes up.