Fordyce Maxwell: 'Hysterical screaming and crying when you succeed? Please, no'

THERE is a place for tears. One of the best wedding speeches I've heard was given by the bride's mother – a break with convention that should be heard more often – who said of the fraught-as-usual build-up to the occasion: "Yes, there have been tears – most of them from my husband when he found out how much it was going to cost."

Tears of grief are also allowable. And sometimes tears of genuine happiness. What worries me is that thanks to the pernicious influence of television "talent" shows and "celebrity" programmes anyone under 30 thinks that the only way to show happiness is to burst into tears and scream and jump about.

I can almost understand that as a reaction to "We wuz robbed" failure as a few chairs, waste-paper bins and doors over the years could testify. But hysterical screaming and crying when you succeed? Please, no. That's why reaction to my successful completion of an Open University short course – Start Listening to Music – has been muted in these parts. A "Well done" – "It was nothing" – "I know, but well done anyway" exchange, a raised fist when no one was looking, and back to work. As Sir Alex Ferguson says, all that a success means is that it's time to plan the next one.

However, I can look back on the course as an interesting experience, not least because it was all done online. At first, when I – that's right, my son Tom – installed the course programme and logged on to see the chatroom e-mails coming in – "Hello everyone!", "A bit about me!", "Getting to know you" – I almost had second thoughts. My first thought, that I'd already paid for the course, kept me going. As did the fact that taking part in the chat was not compulsory – although, as with the online tutorials and assignment feedback, it was fun to guess what particular onliners might be like face to face.

All human life was there, revealed unwittingly through their messages. The fretful, the panicky – "Can you clarify the word count because I tend to overwrite" – the artful innocent – "I've just no idea how I got 95%" – and the one asking long questions to which he already knew the answer.

Then there were the excuses for not finishing an assignment on time, one or two dropouts and exchanges on obscure pieces of music – the discussion about perpetuum mobile/minimalism/un-square dance went on for some time without advancing the sum of human knowledge – and some vigorous argument about Eleanor Rigby.

I did as well as hoped, that is, passed, while discovering that I was in exalted company because Ian Rankin, author and creator of Inspector Rebus, did the same course last year. He too had been absent from formal education for more than 20 years – I wish I'd put my absence to such good use – he, too, passed, and summed up how I felt perfectly: "I did learn a lot. I was introduced to new musical genres and was educated into ways of actively listening to music, as opposed to the more passive 'hearing it'. And at the end of it I realised I still have a tin ear."

But neither of us burst into tears.