Would he have forgiven Gilligan and lobbied for the lifting of his ban if he’d gotten the abject grovel-fest he was after? No—as evidenced by his response to Gilligan’s subsequent more fulsome apology, which can be summarized as “He’s only groveling now because he saw that his original rubbish apology wasn’t cutting any ice, therefore we must continue to haul him over the coals forever.” Forgetting that Inspector Javert is nobody’s favorite character in Les Misérables, Holland omits to explain why a perfectly worded apology that follows cheating at sport plus a flawed apology is unacceptable, while arguing that the very same perfect apology after only cheating at sport would have been ideal. Logically, it doesn’t stack up.

While I agree that Gilligan’s use of the word “oversight” in his initial statement and in relation to deliberately pumping himself full of banned substances before each race was an evasion at best—indeed, I said so here—what I find remarkable is that Holland seems to have no idea why Gilligan’s first reaction to being exposed as a sinner might have been so inadequate. The apologies of disgraced celebrities tend to be, don’t they? “I’m sorry, but . . .” when there is no possible “but”; “I’m sorry for the part I played” when no one else played any role at all; “I’m sorry if certain people were offended” when only those under general anesthetic could fail to take offense, so unquestionably vile was the transgression. I hope I’m not the only person who has noticed that deficient apologies seem to be perennially in vogue. There’s an obvious reason for this—so obvious that I’m not going to waste time explaining.