Rebecca Barry: And the tantrum award goes to...

Courtney Love. Photo / Supplied

The biggest outburst I thought I'd ever witnessed was on the bus. A woman I vaguely recognised was cursing the driver for passing the bus stop after she'd pressed the buzzer.

I'm not sure the words she used were warranted for someone who hadn't killed anybody but she continued her tirade as she stomped off the bus, hiffing her magazine at the window as it drove off. It was at that moment I realised where I knew her from - she was the yoga teacher at my gym.

A good outburst is entertaining because it contains an element of hypocrisy.

Take, for instance, the victims of the Undie 500 - the rioters who have been treated so unfairly.

They burn a few couches to express their disdain for laziness, throw bottles to demonstrate recycling, and chuck their brains in the fire after using them so much in class - and the police haul them off in handcuffs and blind them with pepper spray.

At least the real world is a forgiving place. Have an outburst out there and all will be forgotten. When Kanye West jumped on stage at the VMAs, yanked the mic from Taylor Swift and ranted that she didn't deserve the kudos, no one in the audience thought he should be talking about himself.

Aussie shock jock Kyle Sandilands just couldn't go back to work for a while following his outburst about Magda Szubanski's weight. No biggie.

And when not-very-Serena Williams verbally assaulted the line judge at the US Open, it only cost her a little tournament. (Speaking of tennis, did anyone else get a kick out of Roger Federer's incandescent tanty at the umpire that cemented his reputation as a great loser? "Don't tell me to be quiet, okay, when I wanna talk, I'll talk." RoFed, your twins will dish that back to you in 14 years.)

The trend is even creeping into politics, tainting the very fabric of democracy. Now we know Australian PM Kevin Rudd drops the f-bomb, he can't exactly claim to represent the people of Australia. Republican Joe Wilson thinks Obama lies so he yells it in the middle of the President's speech.

Outbursts are even coming from the pens of children, like those who wrote to Michael Laws over the Wanganui "H" issue. Quite rightly, the Mayor told them to take control of their anger issues. They'll be rioting before we know it.

But the best outburst of the week comes from someone not particularly prone to them. Courtney Love, who, between polite appearances at New York fashion week where she reportedly said aloud, "What the hell is THAT?" as a model teetered past her on the runway, managed to connect her fingers with the keyboard and log on to her Twitter page. There's more.

While online she threatened to file a lawsuit against the company that turned her beloved ex-husband, the late Kurt Cobain, into an avatar for Guitar Hero.

"We are going to sue the [expletive] out of Activision," she barely writes.

Yes, it's a video game he presumably would've hated - it encourages fans to contribute to corporate coffers by grossly simplifying and ripping off musos' creativity on little plastic axes.

But Courtney must've forgotten she'd sold Cobain's image before crying foul that punters could play soft rock tracks through Kurt's avatar if they wanted.

Thank goodness Nirvana's Krist Novoselic and Dave Grohl chose the high road, bypassing a Twitter outburst for a traditional media one. They, too, were happy to have turned their dead mate into a cartoon with teeth bigger than Jennifer Garner's, and now they're upset that Kurt could be seen and heard playing, as in the example provided below, a Bon Jovi song introduced by a blond Flavor Flav. Smells like outburst spirit to me.

You think Courtney's mad; Jon Bon Jovi is seriously fuming. "I don't know how I would have reacted to that," he raged. "I don't know that I would have wanted it either."

At least history never repeats. DJs and sportspeople will never have outbursts again. Courtney where-is-the-Love will refrain from embarrassing herself in the future. Politicians will go back to their mild ways.

In the meantime, I'm holding out for at least four outbursts at NZ Fashion Week.

And what of next year's Undie 500, if it's held? Surely by then there will be nothing left to have an outburst about.

Or maybe it's time we listened to the wants of the rioters and gave them their own street, a bunch of cardboard cut-out cops and toxic couches to do what they like with, and turn it into a game.

They could even dress up like Kurt Cobain if they like. The best outburst gets a free yoga lesson from the woman at my gym.