Where have all our manners gone?

I'm not Miss Manners or anything. I'm not always polite 100 per cent of the time. But growing up, I knew what good manners are. If I visit a friend, I thank them for having me over. If I walk by someone, I say "excuse me". If I want something I ask for it, instead of just taking it, and it's impolite to interrupt.

How come Kanye West never learned that? By now you've probably heard about his antics at the MTV Video Music Awards in New York earlier this week. Taylor Swift, 19, had just won her first MTV Video Music Award – for best female video, and she was giving her speech when Kanye grabbed the microphone out of her hand and told her, and everyone else, that although her video was very good, Beyoncé's video was the best "of all time". Classy.

Everyone is of course saying that we shouldn't be suprised by Kanye's terrible behaviour. He's done similar things in the past, like throwing a tantrum at the 2004 American Music Awards, when he didn't win best new artist, or at the 2006 MTV Europe Music Awards, when he again got madthat he didn't win. Do you think there's a pattern here?

Kanye apologized to Taylor on his blog afterwards, saying "I'm not crazy, I'm just real". In real need of an etiquette class? Yes, I think that might be it.