Quintin Jardine's blog

Anyone watching the Open has week must have been struck by the number of apologies by commentators for any ‘bad language that may have come through our microphones’.

At the height of battle on Sunday, only Scheffler seemed to be an Eff Word free zone, but a week before at the Scottish Open he was no angel either when the greens didn’t behave as he expected.

Not only golf either: a couple of apologies were offered during the Lions game today, the Indian captain turned the air blue at Lords last week and as for football, we won’t even go there.

I admit that I thought it was farcical. People know that many golfers swear when they find rough and bunkers. Often all the apologies do is draw their attention to something they may not have heard in the first place.

It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago that I discovered there’s a reason for it. Listening to,Chris Evans one morning I heard one of his guests refer to something as ‘batshit crazy’. He laughed out loud then apologised to her first having to apologise for her.

‘I have to,’ he said. ‘It’s an OfCom requirement.’

So now you know.