I can hold to this argument without fear of contradiction because Mr Turner always brings up the time he met Dannii Minogue. For reasons I'm not going to go into, she had to get changed in front of him and he was – apparently – very taken with her toned abs and six pack. It was like looking in a mirror, he always says.

All right, I can't really justify the similarity thing. Cheryl is more Prada, while I'm more Primark. However, the one thing that we definitely do have in common is tears. It seems that we both cry at the drop of a hat.

I've watched poor Cheryl over the past few weeks as the great unwashed audition for The X Factor and reduce her to a teary mess with their trials, travails and tribulations. You would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh. Cheryl crumbles in the face of any hard-luck story. Although, unlike the rest of us, she isn't ever reduced to a snivelling wreck with make-up and mascara running all down her face. It's just a few delicate tears that she tries to wipe away. The woman's a millionaire pop star – surely someone could hand her a tissue?

Now, you may think that I find this kind of behaviour pathetic, and you're not wrong. The problem is that I am just as bad. I cry at everything. As soon as that dreadful 'heartbreak' music starts to swell, my eyes fill up and my bottom lip starts to tremble. I can try to cover it up with a few sniffs and complaints about my 'hay fever' but it's fairly obvious what's going on. Especially as it happens all the time. The Olympics was particularly bad as I cried every time someone won a race. Or lost a race. Or broke a record. Or didn't. I cry at anniversaries, Christmas and birthdays – and not just my own. Given that the tears can start at any minute, over anything, my handbag always has at least one packet of tissues in it.

I didn't used to be this bad. I remember going to see Kramer vs Kramer at the cinema (yes, I am that old) and a poor girl was seated at the end of our row with a whole box of hankies on her lap as she bawled her way through the movie. It was her fourth time seeing it, which is how she knew to bring a man-sized box. All the people that cried at Pearl Harbor (it really was that bad) were generally drowned out by us cheering on the Japanese.

The only film that has done that to me is Casper The Friendly Ghost. We have it on DVD, but I'm not allowed to watch it. The kids are allowed, obviously; just not with me. The first time I saw it, I started with the discreet eye wipe. Then a bit of a 'hay fever' hankie action. But within minutes it was great wracking sobs, all tears and snotters.

You would think that a display of such raw emotion would inspire some kind of sympathy in your nearest and dearest. Not in this house, it doesn't. They don't even hand me a tissue. There's another thing that Cheryl and I have in common.