Self-censorsip at the cup final

The after-match interviews with participants in the FA Cup Final were highly revealing: not for anything that the players or coaches said, but for the way in which the questions were put. "How sweet is this moment?" the triumphant Portsmouth boss, Harry Redknapp, was challenged, while his goalkeeper, David James, was asked to "describe your emotions at this moment?"

Behind these exchanges lies an intriguing story of TV self-censorship, says Mark Lawson. For years, TV critics and letter-writers to listings magazines ridiculed the habit of asking sweaty athletes, straight after their event: "How do you feel?" Survivors of high-school shoot-outs or earthquakes would also be prodded for immediate feedback on their feelings.

In a relatively rare example of satire changing behaviour, the complaints eventually resulted in on-the-scene reporters recognising that these four words had become unacceptable. Hence, now: "Describe your emotions."

But such translation is the linguistic equivalent of repainting the walls in a doss-house. Equally, "how sweet is this moment?" is not inherently a better question than "How do you feel?" and may, in fact, even be a worse one because it assumes a positive response, whereas even the now-discredited four-worder allowed the interviewee to say that they felt shitty or angry.

Another solution is to use a boring formula but try to defuse it. So, after Ryan Giggs received his latest Premiership medal, Sky asked him: "It's a cliche that the first one is the sweetest but how does this compare with the rest?"

This was another good example of the nervousness about hackneyed phrases. But switching from inanity to inanity that's apologised for is a small step. The problem is not the language but the format. No good interview can be drawn from an athlete who is exhausted and desperate to celebrate, so the only possible question is a stupid one, however phrased. How would they feel about dropping these breathless encounters completely?