Can't stand the heat? Get out the Kleenex

'Laugh and the world laughs with you," said the poet. "Weep, and you weep alone." That poet never watched an episode of MasterChef SA.

I don't know what they do to those contestants, but every week it's a lachrymal jamboree, a gibbering group sob-fest, a great blubbery shiny-faced circle tear-jerk. They cry when they win, they cry when they lose, they cry as though it's contagious or compulsory and just off camera someone is applying electrodes to their first childhood puppy. These must be the world's most sensitive utensil jockeys: they use tears the way Gordon Ramsay uses the word fuck. One of these days they'll be set the task of preparing onion soup and we'll all be drowned in our living rooms.

The star crier in their soggy constellation used to be Sanet, who may have been crying because she'd just walked past a reflective surface and realised she was on national TV with her hair dyed purple. She once cried while tasting jam. Most recently she was crying because she was ejected from the show. "I don't feel like I've failed," she quavered, bravely betraying a shaky grasp of the word "fail". Herman the electrician cried when she left, and dedicated his next dish to her. He was ejected next. He cried. Everyone cried. MasterChef SA is the cryingest series on TV, except when Homeland is on. I've had to stop watching Homeland for fear that if I see Claire Danes's face crumple like a cardboard Kleenex one more time I'll start rooting for the terrorists. Better al-Qaeda than I'll Cryda.

But don't get me wrong. I like a good weep as much as the next man, so long as the next man isn't Claire Danes. There are certain things that cause my tears to well faster than a sharp elbow to the nose: a nice wedding; Marlene Dietrich singing "Go 'way from my window"; the scene in Casablanca where they sing La Marseillaise; the bit in To Kill A Mockingbird when Gregory Peck has lost the case and slowly closes his briefcase and leaves the courtroom while Scout watches from the gallery in stunned silence and the pastor puts his hand on her shoulder and says, "Stand up. Your father's passing." I cry just writing it down.

But I find real-life crying more difficult. I'm from a Wasp family in Durban; we didn't cry, we just sweated more freely. Whenever my dad saw me crying he'd make a pantomime of unbuckling his belt and say, "Come here, I'll give you something to cry about." How we laughed. I'm not being sarcastic - I still find that funny. After he died I didn't weep until several years later, when it suddenly happened while I was walking home from rugby practice. I'm not saying that's healthy; it's just what it is.

This week I was discussing the MasterChef SA contestants with a friend. "The good ones are better than the Australians," she said.

I agreed.

"Although they cry too much."

I agreed again.

"But I don't like that Kamini. She's too unemotional."

There I can't agree. There may be reasons not to warm to Kamini - anyone who serves food saying, "It's got nice crunch and warm notes of cumin" needn't expect a tip from me - but not crying isn't one of them.

Tears on TV don't mean what they mean in real life. In real life you can't always see what people are thinking or how deeply they feel: adult faces are more like walls than windows. In scripted drama shows you have other ways of signalling what's happening, but in reality shows tears or shouting are your main tools for conveying drama. Kamini's a better cook than most of them; maybe that's why she's not as good at reality TV.

My own biggest fear is of being accused of some terrible crime and having my every outward reaction scrutinised by a public looking to decide my guilt. I'd probably blow it, like Lindy Chamberlain - the Australian mom whose baby was stolen by a dingo in 1980 and who was officially cleared only last year - or the parents of Madeleine McCann, all largely condemned because they didn't cry enough.

Lance Armstrong miscalibrated his apology on Oprah by tearing up only on the second night of a two-part show, and then doing it in the wrong place. If I were Shrien Dewani, I'd drop the wibbling underpants-on-my-head routine and start taking some advanced sob-management classes.

Meanwhile the MasterChef kids will continue to season the broth with their tears. Someone should take them aside and explain exactly what the working life of a chef in a real kitchen is really like - the heat, the pressure, the yelling, the thieving waiters and frequent bankruptcies. That'll give them something to cry about.