Tearing Up The Rulebook

A husband and wife, infertile, growing old together, a painting of their dream home on the mantelpiece, always in touching distance, but an ever-increasing fiction. Then she crumpled off the technicolor coil, and I wept into my lamb brochette with steamed rice.

I was en route to New York, sitting slap in the middle of an U-15 all-girl lacrosse tour. And as I blubbed by the aisle, the Sophia’s and Ophelia’s and jolly lacrosse sticks in the surrounding seats giggled and squirmed and were sooooo embarrassed on my behalf.

Which was very thoughtful, but I failed to notice, too busy stabbing at the air steward button in a desperate attempt to obtain more gin as my whole face lactated. Up – the 2009 film by Pixar – was an utterly misleading title. I blamed the altitude, and perhaps the gin, and on the return flight trip I choked on my grilled chicken breast with caramelised plums served in a cranberry reduction, as Wall-E faded and sputtered away.

A study in 2005 on the cognitive and emotional processing at high altitude by the Institute of Psychology at the University of Zurich exposed groups of men to varying simulated altitudes for 30-minute stretches. At each level, up to 4500 meters, they were asked to perform tasks, such as visual recognition tasks, tests in word fluency and word association tasks. Altitude had no effect on their ability to perform these tasks. An earlier study in the cognitive ability of climbers even found that those who suffered acute mountain sickness at 4500 meters experienced improved conceptual thinking. The scientists at Zurich concluded that, at altitudes of 3000 – 4,500 meters, short-term adaptation mechanisms of your body enable you to preserve the cognitive and emotional functions of your brain.

So altitude had little to do with my total lack of self-control. Plus, I was in a pressurized air cabin.

Perhaps the power Pixar seems to hold over the tear glands is down to the psychologically damaging cartoons of our childhood. Bambi was an early in introduction to animal cruelty. Animals of Farthing Wood – drought and murder. The Lion King – persecution. Watership Down – genocide.

Or perhaps I am wet, so I took the question to the locals. The three stand-out films that some gregarious men have lamented at are:

• Wall-E
• The Keira Knightley version of Pride and Prejudice
• Marley and Me

Perhaps we cry at anything, technicolour or not. But God help us if Pixar decides Anne Frank needs a makeover.