England

They’re already spruiking fans’ tours to the 2013 Ashes on the telly, in between ads for priceless mock memorabilia and the odd spot of cricket.

Not interested. Wouldn’t go to see The Ashes if I could. But the next tour to India? Now that’s something worth saving up for, and not just because India is a far more enticing travel destination than dreary, drizzly old England.

Fact is, Australia vs India is cricket’s great new rivalry. The Ashes, great tradition though it is, is second, with South Africa vs Australia third and daylight fourth. Disagree? Here are 10 reasons why India is the new England.

Continue reading "India is the new England" »

What happened
Five days of crime and chaos. Beginning in London and later spreading to other parts of England.

The temperature first started to rise on August 4, when police shot dead Mark Duggan, a 29-year-old from Tottenham, one of London’s poorest areas. Then, on August 6, an at-first peaceful demonstration in Tottenham over the shooting turned violent.

The situation spun out of control. Petrol bombs were thrown at police, fires were lit, looters pillaged shop after shop, home after home. Over the following days, looting and rioting spread throughout London, and then throughout the country.

Continue reading "Biggest moments of 2011 #13 Anarchy in the UK" »

This video does not make for happy viewing. It depicts a British Mum, who quite possibly is intoxicated, and her racist rant against just about everyone else in her tram carriage.

The video, taken this weekend, has sparked a nationwide debate about racism and immigration and has reportedly resulted in the woman being arrested. After this year’s London riots, it is hardly the video the English needed the world to see.

London’s Olympic organisers probably won’t be too chuffed either. But mostly, we feel sorry for the kid on her lap. What kind of life can he look forward to?

Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the late US senator, ambassador and statesman, caused widespread consternation when he released a report in 1965 about the disintegration of the negro family in America.

Sub-titled ‘The case for national action’, Moynihan’s report argued that without jobs, negro men would become alienated as husbands and fathers, leading to family dysfunction and breakdown, increasing out-of-wedlock births and sole parenthood, declining education outcomes and entrenched poverty.

“From the wild Irish slums of the 19th century Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in American history; a community that allows a large number of men to grow up in broken families, dominated by women, never acquiring any stable relationships to male authority, never acquiring any set of rational expectations about the future – that community asks for and gets chaos.

Continue reading "Why Britain is broken, and how it might be fixed" »

Watching the chaos over the past few days, it has become clear that what is happening in London boils down to the have-nots pillaging the haves.

The riots are no longer just about the shooting of London resident Mark Duggan by police officers.

The partner of Duggan has denounced the riots, saying they are now far divorced from the protest that started it all:

Continue reading "Don’t mention the class war" »

This morning, my wife and I packed overnight bags and left East London for work, not knowing if the area would be safe enough to return to it in the evening. There is a 15-minute walk from the tube station to our house (right past the shiny new Olympic site…), and there’s every chance that walk could be filled with violence, rioters, muggers, police and burning buildings.

Overreaction? No. Last night we watched in amazement on TV as several districts around us, then all around London – then all around the major cities of England, turned into arenas of chaos, violence and looting. And flames.

News helicoptors flew from one enormous blaze to another, all night. England has seen nothing like this since Hitler was bombing us. From our lounge, we could hear the sirens all night.

Continue reading "Home, to a nation of hooded thieves" »

It has been 26 years and 6000-odd episodes since Danny Ramsay first rode his Malvern Star along Ramsay Street, marking the beginning of the soap phenomenon Neighbours.

That first episode, eager to impress, showed Danny experiencing a nightmare with homoerotic and incestuous overtones, about his brother Shane (in Speedos) diving to his death. Sweaty Danny thrashes around in his bed to the sounds of the decadent bucks’ party next door.

Neighbours would later launch the Hollywood career of Guy Pearce and turn Kylie the talking budgie into a singing one, but for me that first instalment has been a rare highlight.

Continue reading "Love thy English Neighbours" »

Britain’s Royal Family is now officially a very old, very profitable freak show.

The proof lies in the sheer scale of outrageous memorabilia being flogged by even the most respectable of merchants and the simply silly stories making news in the lead-up to the royal nuptials.

They’re certainly a cute couple, and through a long tawdry process of elimination William and Kate actually seem fairly functional for royal folk. But is anyone taking this circus seriously – other than an opportunity to seriously cash in?

Continue reading "The Royal Wedding - get your freak on" »

It was almost rained out, but England beat South Africa in the cricket World Cup semi-final on this day in 1992.

It’s Tuesday at The Punch. What’s on your mind? Share it here.

Leaving aside the air-conditioned comfort and excellent lamingtons of the media centre, your intrepid Punch correspondent journeys to the other side of the SCG to mingle with the Barmy Army.

So here we are, at ground level on the far side of the ground, on what used to be the hill but is now a mass of concrete called the Victor Trumper Stand. How very quaint.

It’s little England down here. Barmy Army HQ. Wet your whistles everybody. It’s singin’ time. Let’s begin with a Barmy Army standard, to the tune of Yellow Submarine.

Continue reading "The Punch @ the SCG, Day 2: Among the Barmy Army" »

Hello England. You’re that island (or portion thereof) adrift in the North Sea somewhere near, gee I dunno, Iceland or something right?

England, I’m told you used to be this terrifically confident place which belied its speck-on-the-map geographical status by civilising the world with such benevolent and enduring cultural endowments as the Westminster system, cricket and The Benny Hill Show.

But suddenly England, you’ve gone all insecure and snipey. England, I can’t tell you how genuinely shocked I was to read this piece by journalist Matthew Norman in The Telegraph the other day. Here’s the really surprising bit.

Continue reading "Land of no hope and vainglory" »

When I came into work today, my deliciously juvenile impulse, was to tease the Englishmen in my workplace mercilessly about their team’s 4-1 FIFA World Cup thrashing at the hands of Germany.

Fortunately, my better side has triumphed. Here ya go, lads. A nice cup of Twinings all round. Oh, and this list should cheer you up too. It’s a list of…

10 things to console an Englishman in the wake of their World Cup failure.

1. Football schmootball. You guys have some terrific runners. Like Jana Rawlinson.

Continue reading "10 ways to console an Englishman after losing" »

We shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves. There is a long way to go but, just for a moment, lie down, close your eyes, and think of England.

In the same way that Aussies will be fantasising about the prospect of playing England in the second stage at the World Cup, the Poms will be having quiet nightmares about being knocked off by their nemesis in the one sport where we have never bettered the beloved Mother Country, aside from a meaningless 3-1 win in a friendly match in 2003.

England has every right to be unnerved by the prospect, for a number of reasons. The first is that it is in no way a remote fantasy.The way our two groups fall, there is a very real chance that it could happen.

Continue reading "Socceroos can add to England’s history of misery" »

Fergie has done it again and this time there won’t be any more agains – ever.

The royal family and the British public have had a gutful of the red headed bombshell they never really came to terms with in the first place, which is surprising considering her family’s royal and aristocratic background.

Sarah, Duchess of York is a direct descendant of King Charles II and she has known the Queen and the royal family since she was small child. Her Father, Major Ronnie Ferguson, was Prince Philip’s polo manager and the two men were great mates.

Continue reading "Oh Fergie, you’ve really done it this time baby" »

History looks inevitable because we’ve lived it;  we think it happened that way because it had to happen that way.

But history is really a series of hinge points, choices taken and not taken, each of which could have changed the future a little. Even the most insignificant can make a massive difference.

Everyone knows, for instance, that the First World War was triggered by the assassination of Archduke Franz Fedinand at Sarajevo.  What most people forget is that the killing only happened after the assassination attempt proper had failed; and that the gunman Gavrilo Princip only got his chance on his way home, because the Archduke’s driver took a wrong turn and stalled the car.

Continue reading "The chance conversation that helped Thatcher win her war" »

Whenever I tell British friends, old and new, that I’m from Murwillumbah, the closest town to the jungle that is I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, I get the sort of response that I imagine Rolf Harris received when he introduced the wobbleboard to the Poms.

For the past three years I’ve been in the Old Dart, I’ve been bombarded with questions such as “so… have you eaten kangaroo testicles?” whenever the latest instalment of the annual reality show rolls around.

It’s my second draw card, my first one being my ocker twang. I have used them both to get a story, a drink, even a date in the Motherland. Last year I used the I’m a Celebrity factor to impress a potential Brummie suitor.

Continue reading "The one story the English actually give a rat’s about" »

Not since Carrie Bradshaw tapped away at her laptop has a column started with a dafter question, but here goes: Could Germaine Greer be single-handedly responsible for the complete destruction of a society and its culture?

And not just any old society, the one that has exported its language, manners and mores to the rest of the world more than any other. The British.

As ridiculous as it sounds, our expat Sheila-in-chief has been accused of bringing Britain to its knees by one of the country’s most widely-read commentators.

Continue reading "Postcard from London: Greer blamed for British ladettes" »

Following England’s cricketers on Twitter is becoming almost as entertaining as watching them on the field.

Graeme Swann and Jimmy Anderson led the way, giving us the inside track on everything from room service meals to the perils of only packing two pairs of underpants for a tour.

Swann, in particular, went the extra mile by providing details of a stomach bug he picked up.

Continue reading "English cricketers do something right" »

It was the incident that gave flaming sambuca a whole new meaning, turned a young Greek woman into a national heroine and shone an embarrassing spotlight on Britain’s yob culture.

Stuart Feltham, a 20-year-old from outside London, had his genitals set on fire after allegedly dropping his trousers during a boozy night out at a bar in Crete.

Marina Fanouraki, a 26-year-old Greek tourist, admits having soaked Feltham with sambuca in retaliation for having her legs and breasts “forcefully fondled” by him, but denies that she purposely set him alight.

Continue reading "Eurotrashed Aussies almost as bad as plastered Poms" »

There’s further evidence today of the growing contempt that modern managers of sporting codes hold for fans of their games, with English cricket managers begging the crowd to be nice to Ricky Ponting when he walks to the middle in the fourth Ashes Test, getting underway at Headingley in a few hours’ time.

For a measure of how patronising and unnecessary this is, look no further than Australian batsman Shane Watson, who says the booing Ponting gets from the crowds is to be expected - and something players enjoy, even thrive on, when playing in England.

Cricket managers in Australia have shown a similar pattern of growing discomfort with what ordinary people consider a good day out. When the Poms were last here, the Barmy Army’s trumpeter was kicked out of the Gabba for playing his instrument, despite getting prior approval to blow it. (He’s been banned from the Headingley Test, too.)

Continue reading "Boo to English cricket bosses. And the Aussie ones, too" »

For a nation whose history is not exactly littered with foreign invasions, illegal immigration and refugee crises, Australia has a strange fascination with border security.

John Howard discovered the political mileage in appearing to be tough on border protection with his “we’ll decide who comes here” speech of 2001.

Kevin Rudd knows he can’t stray too far from Howard’s approach to retain the affection of middle Australia and has even sticky-taped the words Border Protection on to the end of the Australian Customs Service as if to prove his dedication to the cause.

Continue reading "Postcard from London: Poms see Aussies in dim new light" »

“Two world wars and one world cup” is a popular refrain from the terraces when England play Germany at football (aka soccer).  Offensive as it may be to some, the chant has been around pretty much since England’s World Cup final win over the then West Germany in 1966 and is “popular with the Neanderthal branch of the Ingerland Supporters’ Club, to be sung at Johnny Foreigner once the Channel has been safely negotiated,” according to one fan website.

The victory at Wembley was an aberration and not to be repeated. We die-hard English sports fans of the post-war era (that’s post 1966) fully understand this fact. We’re also aware that the 2005 Ashes series victory, pleasant enough entertainment but clearly an unscripted entry into the English sporting history books, would never occur again in our lifetime.

So it is with some trepidation and a sense of dismay that we watch Freddie Flintoff and the chaps once again threaten our calm state of underachieving equilibrium.

Continue reading "Proud Britons remain quietly confident of noble defeat" »

The monkey is not just off the back – he’s on the floor, break-dancing.

If we didn’t win this time, we would never win at Lords ever again.

For 75 years that Aussies have dominated us at the home of cricket, but by Sunday we dared to dream. A lead of more than 500, two days to bowl the Aussies out – and a bowling line-up that consisted of four seamers, one spinner and two umpires.

Continue reading "Why winning at Lords meant the world to us Poms" »

Staring out at the ocean with a surfboard under my arm, I wondered if I had truly lost the plot. This was no Surfers’ Paradise.

I could feel neither my hands nor my feet, my nose was a block of ice and even my eyelashes were freezing. Breathing was becoming a challenge, too. No, this was not some kind of extreme sports challenge - I was on a hen’s weekend on a glorious spring morning in Cornwall, England.

On this day, however, the seaside town of Newquay more closely resembled a freezing winter’s day alongside the Great Australian Bight. Confused? Let me explain.

Continue reading "Ooo-er, let’s hear it for the saucy English hen’s night" »

Winding up Ricky Ponting threatens to overtake fishing as England’s biggest recreational sport.

From his Gary Pratt blow-up in 2005 to Sunday’s ‘Physiogate’ press conference, us Poms like nothing better than to dress up the beady-eyed Tasmanian as the pantomime villain.

It’s just so much fun to watch – Little Ricky standing there in the playground shouting, “Miss, they stole my Test match…”

Continue reading "Why Ponting the sook has given us Poms the edge" »

WHEN mounting an argument sure to rub some people up the wrong way - such as, say, listing reasons to love the English on the first day of The Ashes - it can be useful to start by invoking supporting words of wisdom from a unifying, popular figure.

Step forward, Donald Rumsfeld.

The former US Defence Secretary - not exactly of Ghandi-esque stature in global public opinion - had a favourite phrase: that America would be vindicated in “the great sweep of human history”.

In the great sweep of sporting history, the English have been the objects of increasing ridicule. They deserve much of it, especially with their tragi-comic efforts in soccer and cricket during the 1990s. But with the 2009 Ashes series beginning this evening, Australian time, we’re sure to be in for weeks of tiresome jokes about whingeing Poms, underachievers, chokers, yob fans with beer bellies, along with general mirth at moments of English failure.

When Mitchell Johnson gets the ball in hand and eyes off Andrew Strauss in Cardiff before starting his run-up, it might be worth him - and Australians everywhere - pausing for a moment to reflect on England’s place in the great sweep of human history. For England, possibly more than any other nation, deserves respect.

[More Ashes: Luke Foley on English elitists | Phil Hillyard’s photo secrets]

And as one of the 10 reasons below argues, respecting England just might help Australia win The Ashes.

Continue reading "Ten reasons to love the Poms" »

Tonight, a young man from New South Wales will step on to a cricket field in old South Wales. Phillip Hughes, age twenty, son of a banana farmer, will open the batting for his country in international sport’s most enduring contest, Ashes cricket.

He’s dreamt of this moment for much of his young life. One can write with some confidence that he hasn’t dreamt of playing his first Ashes Test at Sophia Gardens, rather at Lords or Headingley or Old Trafford.

The opening match of the 2009 series will be the first Ashes Test played on neutral soil. That is, it will take place neither in England nor Australia, but in a foreign country, Wales.

The first Welshman to captain England at Test cricket, Tony Lewis, wrote of Sophia Gardens, ‘a day watching there when the prevailing wind blows is like a week at sea’.

Continue reading "England’s toffy cricket elite keeps the crowds at bay" »

Staring out at the ocean with a surfboard under my arm, I wondered if I had truly lost the plot. This was no Surfers’ Paradise.

Continue reading "Pommy-style Hen’s Night the ultimate form of stimulus" »