From breakages to birthdays: 10 perfect excuses for everyday cock-ups

How do you craft the perfect excuse? The Cambridge researcher Dr Paulina Sliwa has devised a “unified theory of excuses” called the Good Intention Account. Her study, published in the journal Philosophy and Public Affairs, argues that the key to a good excuse lies in an adequate moral intention: you were acting out of the purest motives, but were thwarted by circumstances. Rigorously applying this new formula allows us to provide scientifically verified, optimised excuses for the most common social infractions.

Being late for an appointment. “Sorry, I got held up by a protest march, which I then felt obliged to join because I broadly agreed with its aims. And, yeah, my phone died.”

Missing a work deadline. “I’m a perfectionist, so sometimes I have difficulty with time constraints. I also hate to brag, which is why I didn’t mention this earlier.”

Breakages. “I’m sorry I accidentally destroyed your expensive item. My supreme lack of attachment to material things can sometimes make me careless, in a good way. Life is precious – that’s the take-home message here.”

Forgetting someone’s birthday. “You look so amazing that I always think you’re younger than you are. Three and a half weeks younger, in fact. Happy belated birthday! Yes, it’s an Easter card. That’s all they have in the shops right now. You can’t blame me for that.”

Failure to attend a wedding. “I really wanted to come, but I had to weigh that desire against the possibility that I would get drunk, stand on a table and scream: ‘He’s wrong for you!’ during the speeches. I was still wrestling with the dilemma when I realised the whole thing happened, like, three Saturdays ago. My bad.”

Misdirected communication. “It’s a mark of how much I value your discretion that I forwarded you that confidential email slagging off a colleague – a colleague who, unfortunately, turned out to be you. Apols.”

Failure to keep a secret. “Compulsive honesty is probably my biggest fault, along with a strong desire for transparency. I’m sorry if you didn’t know that about me. If it’s any consolation, my version of your dark secret was one of my best-performing Facebook posts ever.”

Breaching a commitment. “When I say I’m going to do something, I damn well do it. It’s a point of honour with me. So when I said: ‘I am totally going to back out of that promise to buy Frank’s Subaru!’ that’s exactly what was going to happen. In hindsight, I probably should have said it to you, Frank. In one sense, this is my fault.”

Being disloyal. “When it comes to my friends, I am fiercely loyal. But what about when friends turn on each other? It’s a genuine quandary, with no easy answers. My solution is to prioritise my mates by alphabetical order. I’m sorry if that upsets you, Xanthe.”

Breaking up with someone. “I could honestly never do anything to hurt you, which is why I thought it best to delete all my social media accounts, change my phone number and move to France without a word. I guess I hoped you’d eventually begin to doubt I ever existed. You know what? Maybe we were both a little naive.”