Oxford life. Thirtysomething challenges. Music leanings. Anything really.

In Friends, there was an episode where Chandler couldn't cry. Something triggered him off in the show and off he went, crying at everything. "I've opened the floodgates," he said, at the end of the show.

I don't know what it was for me, but about five years ago, my floodgates opened. Most memorably when I went to see Billy Elliot at the cinema with Liz. I was a waterfall of tears. Not being prepared for this emotional response left me dripping wet in the cinema, with no tissues to mop up the flood. Men? Take tissues into a film? No way, man.

Things appeared to get to a head at the end of the first series of Come Dancing. I'm confessing big time here, but I'd watched a couple of the shows after coming back from New Zealand, and got right behind Natasha Kaplinsky. And the show's format was so perfect - traditional entertainment with the modern reality TV bent (eek, am I sounding old here or what?)

Well, Natasha won, and I got all emotional. Liz was the only witness, I think she found it endearing. I found it embarassing.

Tonight has been the final of the second series.

Guess what? It happened again. This time it was during Julian Clary's last dance, having just been eliminated.

Crying. Over a TV program. About dancing. Those floodgates are well opened.