Aussie summer ruined by poms and rain

December 2, 2010

tags: Adelaide, Australia, Brisbane, Cote D Azur, Currencies Direct, flat white, Living In France, Moving To France, Sunny France, The Ashes 2010

I would so love to be going onto Adelaide for the next Test starting Thursday instead I am flying back to sunny France via the snow bound UK today. I said to that nice lady decorator that we should perhaps think about spending Christmas in Australia, when the 4th and 5th test will be underway, but she still remembers when, as a family, we went to Antigua about 15 years ago when I “discovered” that there was a Test match on whilst we were there. She had the temerity to suggest that I had previous knowledge of the match, and refused to believe it was all a horrible coincidence…

It has been a very gratifying week and I have come to the conclusion that there is a reasonably intelligent under strand to the Barmy Army, the motley collection of travelling English cricket fans, as there were several occasions when their humour was exhibited, such as when they were suggesting that Mitchell Johnson, an Australian bowler who had a nightmare match for the Australians, should be man of the match, but for England. Their singing of “There’s Only One Mitchell Johnson” on the last day made me laugh. In fact I chanced across the cheerleader of the Army in the crowd as my picture below shows.

The cheerleader for The Barmy Army, seen at the Brisbane Ashes Test

Another good joke that was doing the rounds before the first Test Match, was that the Aussies were going to win the series 5-0 as they have on the last two tours, and it has been very gratifying to see the Aussie Press castigating their team for not performing. No praise at all for then for the sterling Pom effort! Pom, short for pomegranate is a derogatory term the Australians use to describe the colour most Brits go when taking in too much sunshine.

Whilst the Poms can get enough sunshine whilst here, I have been struck by how white the population of Brisbane is on the whole, I guess they are being very careful about sun induced skin cancer. so one last swipe at Australian language before I depart, to order a normal coffee here you have to ask for a “flat white” , and now that their cricket team has been flattened by the mighty English, I can see exactly why they would call it that.

As I prepared to leave this morning, I could not resist the last opportunity to see some more Australian breakfast TV as it has been a major source of material for my amusement and this blog. Amusement this morning took different dimension in that today is apparently the first day of summer in Australia, and the programme I was watching came live from Bondai Beach in Sydney where the rain was absolutely lashing down! It is a sign…. The Ashes are coming home with us! The English are here to destroy the Australian summer . It started in Brisbane with the cricket, now we have brought them some of our spare rain, next stop to ruin Adelaide for them!

OK, that’s enough Aussie baiting, at least until later in the week when the second Ashes Test starts. Stand by your beds, I am staying on Aussie time until the second test has finished in another draw.

Chris France

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