If anyone thought swearing had lost its ability to shock, they were proved wrong when Joe Kinnear held his first press conference as Newcastle United manager.

His opening salvo at the media, apparently containing 52 expletives in five minutes, stunned our nation’s sports reporters.

I never had them down as an especially refined bunch, but so appalled were the delicate sensibilities of the national press that the Kinnear story has hogged the headlines like a front-bencher’s indiscretion ever since.

Of course it is a poor show of discipline for a leader to lose his rag in public. No wonder footballers have no sense of respect, and so on, and so on, but I can’t help thinking if you’re going to let rip, you might as well do it in style.

I’ve heard all the stuff about swearing being a sign both of laziness and of a poor vocabulary, but I still have a sneaking fondness for a full and frank expression of strong views. It’s probably nostalgia for my childhood. I can’t imagine why my mother would have felt the need to swear, but when she did, she would come out with some corking expressions.

“Great Jumping Jehosophat!” was a favourite maternal phrase, and was used with great vehemence. And if Mum was really vexed, you could count on a passionate: “Hell’s bells and buckets of blood!”

I use the latter myself to this day, and I can assure you, it brings me great relief.

My personal vote of thanks this week goes to the local authority which has decided to start calling a lollipop lady a lollipop lady, and a traffic warden a traffic warden.

Harrow council is also going to start talking about rubbish tips and double yellow lines again – at least when dealing with the public.

Subversive stuff, this, and I’m sure it won’t be long before they get told they’re way off message (or ****ing out of order, as Mr Kinnear might say).

Which would be a shame, because I, for one, am far more offended by verbs like “access” or “impact” than I am by the odd spot of swearing.