Adam Walton: I beg your pardon, I don't swear I just copy daddy.

Byline: Adam Walton

I BEG your pardon. Would it be too impudent of me to take up 15 minutes of your precious time?

Thank you kindly.

I would like to talk to you about manners, if that's all right with you.

Not the patches run by guvners in East End gangster movies from the late 60s and 70s, but what we regard as acceptable standards of behaviour.

You see, when you're bringing up a headstrong three year-old, you soon begin to realise that a good dose of double standards is required if you are going to be a good teacher of manners and etiquette.

For example, I overheard the wife chastising my daughter, Ava, the other day for saying "what" instead of "pardon".

"I wouldn't worry too much, darling," I shouted from the bottom of the stairs.

"You what?" shouted the wife from the bathroom.

"I said, 'I wouldn't worry too much."' "Eh?" On other occasions, Ava has been known to mildly cuss in front of more sensitive members of our family, "Can't Ava say her p's properly?" enquired a delicate aunt.

"Eh?" I bawled, trying to shout over the telly.

"CAN'T AVA SAY HER P's PROPERLY?" she had to shout.

"As far as I know," I said, reluctantly turning down the adverts because I hadn't seen this particular aunt for 15 years. "Why do you ask, and make it quick before the footie comes back on?"

"She can't say 'pussy cat'. Listen ... Ava, what's that animal asleep on the settee called?"

"Buddy cat! Buddy cat!" Of course, the word that Ava couldn't say wasn't "pussy" but "bloody". That's what the wife and I - both of us vegetarians, members of the local zoo and the Worldwide Fund for Nature, as well as being donators to the RSPCA - call our feline squatter.

What we hadn't realised, of course, was that Ava didn't realise such a word isn't regarded as appropriate in polite society. I hope they don't all sit round and watch televised football at her nursery!

"What did you say the referee was, Ava?"

Crikey! The mind boggles! She has been very good at picking up the basics the pleases and thankyous, hellos and good byes and knowing when and where it is appropriate to try and stick her hand up one of her nostrils; but as far as all of the other behavioural niceties are concerned - the table manners, the politeness, the reserve and humility - she's going to find that her parents are expecting her to be all of the good things that most of the time they are not. But manners are a question of perspective, in the venue in which I DJ the other staff - the bar staff, who I am always careful to be nice to - tell me that I have excellent manners that show how well I've - cough - been brought up. However, some of the punters, the drunk ones that bawl at me to play some "house music" or some Keane (yuck!), have sent in written complaints to the boss that I'm the rudest DJ they've ever met, and that until I'm sacked, they will be taking their custom elsewhere.

There was a knock on the door on Monday morning. Now, I get in from work between 2.30 and three on a Monday morning. The doorbell, which sticks, went off very loudly at 10 past eight in the morning, two minutes after the wife had left the house. I lay in bed and tried to ignore it, but the persistent button pusher rang it again, and again, and again.

I stumbled downstairs like a bear that's been woken from hibernation to discover that the whole of America is on a diet, and there'll be no scraps in the bins any more, no sirreee!

The sales girl on my doorstep greeted me cheerily enough, "I told my colleague you was in, I could see the window open!"

The way she said it, she thought I was going to be pleased.

When I voiced my real feelings in colloquial Anglo Saxon, and pointed out that she'd woken me up and we already had double flipping glazing, she had the brassiness to call me a, "rude bastard" and tell me that she was only doing her jobI think it's ruder to wake someone in the middle of their sleep, and this goes to prove manners and rudeness are a minefield of double standards.

I'll let Ava have the last word,"I want an orange sweetie, daddy!"

"Say 'please '," "(something unintelligible whispered very quietly)" "Eh?"

"Naughty daddy, it's not 'eh' it's 'pardon