Ooh Aah

I have just watched Looking for Eric, a warm and engaging film about a postman with problems and a hero-complex about Eric Cantona.

Right at the end it includes the above clip, after referring to it early in the film ("I'm still trying to get over the seagulls") and there were several times I laughed out loud: Cantona picking up a trumpet and fluffing his way through the Marseillaise, which to all United fans is simply the Cantona chant, was a wonderfully funny moment.

It also deals with the problems of mental illness, and after hearing an interview with cricketer Marcus Trescothick on the radio at lunchtime I was again struck by the silent ordinariness of such problems. The unspeakable burden and the crippling weight they place on average human beings, who bravely live on anyway.

Life is not about the disorders that afflict us; we cannot help the hand we are dealt. We can choose how we play that hand - and a little humour and a determination to live on as best as we can, sometimes feeling like we are pretending to be human, but always living on - these are good choices. I am inspired and encouraged in my walk by tales like these.

And by heroes who speak such twaddle as Cantona's seagulls and bring such joy by so doing.