Hardeep Singh Kohli: You can't beat a good greet, fellas

A FRIEND of mine is deep in the throes of a painful divorce. After two decades of marriage, he and his wife are calling it a day. Their differences would appear irreconcilable.

The inevitable meetings with legal representatives meant that he, his solicitor, his wife and her solicitor all got together in a room last Thursday afternoon to start the ball rolling with regard to the settlement. Fortunately for him and his wife, things are as amicable as divorce can ever be. Yet for some reason, at the start of the meeting, he started to sob uncontrollably at the loss of the single most important relationship in his life. This big, strong, unstoppable man had become an incoherent and uncontrollable ball of snot and tears. He told me that he was unable to stop the flood of tears for the better part of quarter of an hour. Having made a quick calculation I worked out that it had been the most expensive greet of his life, costing him around £260 in solicitor's fees. I chose not to share this with him for fear that it might start him off again.

I believe that its good for men to cry. I'm not sure that my dad would agree. I can remember numerous occasions as an errant child when I would be chastised, and such were the nature of my crimes I would inevitably end up in tears. "Be a man," he would instruct me, obviously intimating that tears are the domain of girls and not boys who were soon to be men. I'm afraid I failed him then and I fail him still. My wife teases me mercilessly because I cried a little at the denouement of that schmaltzy Hollywood movie Armageddon, when the father (Bruce Willis), heading off for certain death in a valiant attempt to save all of humankind, says a stoic farewell to his daughter (Liv Tyler). It was a beautiful father/daughter moment; I felt entitled to cry.
Men absolutely should be allowed to use crying as an emotional response to any situation. I am not ashamed to say that I publicly wept on January 21, 2007, when Arsenal (my team) came from a goal down at home to Manchester United (a smug team) to win 2-1. I shed tears and hugged other men. It was beautiful. As a man who has followed Scotland since the empty promise of Argentina 1978, through to the ignominy of San Marino, it was a change to be able to cry with joy at a football match.

Real men cry and I exhort all my fellow males to embrace the emotional liberty it affords. Tear ducts haven't been evolved out of men, which suggests that we have had a use for them through the ages. And quite apart from allowing a natural expression of one's true emotions, it is about time we men were allowed to win an argument by bursting into tears.

The day the music died

My stereo broke on Tuesday. Every CD I put in spins for a moment before the LED display informs me that there is "no disc". I spent most of Tuesday trying to reinsert CDs at different speeds and in different ways. My Luddite hope was that a more casual approach to insertion might make the machine forget that it was broken. Obviously that failed. Next I tried the "turn it off and turn it back on tomorrow" technique. The stereo was still broken on Wednesday. Thursday saw me blowing into the mechanism in the hope that I could dislodge the invisible fluff that had obviously caused the player to malfunction. By Friday I had come to terms with the fact that I would be spending the weekend and the following seven days music-free. I apologised to Amy Winehouse, Amy Macdonald and Hot Chip as they sat listless and unlistened to by the side of my CD player. I suspect it will be a long and quiet week.

Stranger danger: wake up and smell the coffee

A bleary-eyed morning and I found myself queuing for my second caffeine hit of the day; it was barely past eight. In front of me a little girl on her way to school. She can have been no older than my own 10-year-old daughter. And just as my daughter clutches the money I give her when I let her pay for stuff, this neatly uniformed school girl concentrates intently on the money in her hand, fearful it may disappear in a moment of carelessness. Her large hot chocolate and croissant comes to the princessly sum of £2.25. She stares down at her two pound coins and both of them stare back at her. She looks at the money and then at the croissant. She decides to forgo the croissant with a flustered apology. I offer to pay the 25p difference. The girl looks at me as if I am about to abduct her. I smile at her and the assistant. I assure the girl that it's fine, but she simply isn't having it. Off she rushes, croissant-free. I know kids today are taught to be suspicious of everyone, but I can't pretend that it makes me happy. When I was growing up it felt as if all adults were responsible for bringing up all the kids. From the auld wifie in Rose Street who shouted at us when we ran, to Charlie Purdon, the school jannie, or the big-bosomed clippie on the bus from Buchanan Street who wouldn't think twice about giving you a mouthful if she caught you smoking up the back. And with all the suspicion, all the danger associated with strangers, I ask, are our children any safer?

The deep-fried oyster – swallow that, if you can

There's nothing like oysters to either create a look of suspicion or squeals of delight among prospective eaters. I love oysters. Absolutely adore them. As my new friend Robin tells me, eating an oyster is like kissing the sea. Last week I had a long snog. Robin brought me a trayful of oysters, eight different types, two different varieties. I was in my element. And having never carried out such a side-by-side taste test, it was a revelation. There was such a range of flavours, from the smoky French Fin de Claire to the almost meaty Cornish natives. They were all delicious, but the real revelation was a deep-fried oyster served with tartare sauce. Deep fried. You can take the boy out of Glasgow…

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