Is it because I is foul-mouthed?

You can imagine the conversations in offices and colleges across the land: "Bloody hell, I heard a right pile of crap on Monday's Radio 1 breakfast show ... that silly bugger Ali G said a rude word."

If you're offended by this sentence then, according to research by the Broadcasting Standards Commission, you're one of the more sensitive people in the viewing and listening population.

The vocabulary I used come pretty low down (at numbers 27, 26 and 21 respectively) in the helpful top 30 chart of offensive words published on the BSC's website. Conversely, the word used by Ali G (I'll just write it as "motherf*****" - I'm sure you can fill in the blanks) is the second most offensive on the list after "c***". Yet it's a word now sprinkled liberally throughout albums which are selling millions of copies in the UK. (You know, the ones with the "Parental Advisory" stickers on the front.)

The BSC offensiveness survey reflects the views of the population as a whole, masking the increasing polarisation of attitude between young and old about bad language. Which is where Radio 1's dilemma is most acute. It aims to attract an audience of 15-24-year-olds who, by and large, hold liberal views. The target Radio 1 listener is at least as likely to be offended by patronising censorship as by the occasional swear word.

Indeed the station only received 20 complaints about Ali G's outburst - not many from a total listening audience of millions. I'm willing to bet that most of them were from parents who understandably didn't want to be forced to explain the word's significance to their offspring over the cornflakes. So, Sara Cox and the BBC have both apologised. Even Sacha Baron Cohen has said sorry - but the media coverage has already served to draw more attention to his new single. Perhaps his alleged cock-up (a phrase not even listed in the BSC chart) was rather more intentional than his spokespeople would have us believe.

For the controller of Radio 1, the issue of language is never far from the top of the in-tray. Long gone are the days when the station banned the song Relax by Frankie Goes to Hollywood because it talked of "coming", or when George Michael's single I Want Your Sex was only considered suitable for playing after 9pm. Nowadays the controller tussles with difficult decisions about whether to play, edit or limit to specialist late-night shows hit rap records which can repeatedly include the Ali G word along with references to "bitches" and "niggas", coded homophobia, not-so-coded misogyny, glorification of guns and routine mentions of drugs. The kids are buying them, but should they be able to hear them on the radio?

Then there's the question of unpredictable star interviewees. When I had the job, I was landed in hot water by a live interview with Liam Gallagher which turned into an orgy of four-letter words. Anyone who's ever had anything to do with Liam knows this wasn't an act put on for the Radio 1 audience - it's how he often speaks in real life. Perhaps we should have interviewed him on tape so we could bleep out the swear words, rather as I've used asterisks earlier in this piece. We could also have broadcast a warning to alert listeners to the interview's controversial content.

But wouldn't that have been seen as nannying by the young audience we wanted to attract? And isn't shocking those in authority a necessary part of adolescent rebellion? The controller of Radio 1 uneasily straddles both worlds - partying with the kids to get them to listen, but also acting as the benevolent parent who stops the revels when things threaten to get out of hand. On a live radio station he's bound to get it wrong from time to time, but it would be a pretty dull student party that never went over the top, wouldn't it?