Boys don't cry

When's the last time you cried? This morning, as you lay shivering in bed, realising that beyond your duvet lay an increasingly hostile and hypocritical world, and that the duvet itself was starting to smell of wee? A few weeks ago while trying to get your PC to recognise your printer for the nineteenth time, the stupid plastic twat? Or years ago, when your childhood self witnessed the death of Bambi's mum?



For me, it was last Sunday, and it was because I fell down a few stairs. I banged my hip and shoulder quite hard on the way down, before adopting the approved 'starfish' position an halting my descent. I didn't rip the world apart with unceasing tears, but I did have to sit there bewildered for a few seconds, feeling my eyes prickle like I was six years old.


This battle with the stairs (or, as I'm now calling them, 'My nemesis, the evil Dr Stairs') is by no means the only cause of tears in recent times. In fact, it seems that I'm becoming quite prone to a certain weepiness. Not in a bad way - I'm pretty happy most of the time, when not hurtling down treacherous staircases - but more in the sense that I'm finding myself increasingly moved by certain experiences, especially those in films, books and music.

Just recently, for example, I made the mistake of reading the end of Winnie the Pooh. Have you read it? I hadn't, and wasn't really expecting to be so overcome by the subtlety and beauty of what happens there. I mean, it's Winnie the Pooh. How moving could that be? Oh, I see. Very. Drattit.

(In case you're worried, the end isn't terribly violent or disturbing. He doesn't get kneecapped by the IRA, or hunted through a nightmarish dreamscape by monsters that are like demented giggling children, except that their faces are like dogs' faces and they have no eyes. Or anything. It's just a bit sad.)

Anyway, I think being moved in such a way is no bad thing. In fact, I think it's quite a healthy response to the world. It's certainly one I'm trying to allow into my life rather than repressing it in a 'Man not cry! Man only kill dinosaurs and drive cars!' kind of way.






Anyway, that's all, really. Crying at stuff is OK. And to play us out, here's a bit of music that often makes me well up. I don't know why. There's just something about the build of voices at the end that really gets me. I don't even know what they're saying. But it's very beautiful.