I think there have been significant changes to ashes tours in recent years.

My own cricket following goes back to the 80s. After a few years of bewilderment I clued on to the rules of cricket and spend many happy days at the WACA watching Shield and Test matches.

Two obvious changes since that era spring to mind.

1) All the tour matches have disappeared. A touring team would play most state teams in 4 day matches. Usually two matches before the first test. That would give touring players time to acclimatise to Australian conditions. There have been many touring sides ripped apart by Chris Matthews and Bruce Reid only to bounce back in time for the tests. These opportunities are gone now, visiting teams get savaged in their first test and with back to back tests or three test series there is hardly a chance to bounce back. Only a couple of the English ashes team has played in Australia before and it really shows.

2) The state of the WACA wicket is a sorry tale. Where it once resembled a trampoline in now has all the bounciness of a damp sponge. Needless to say it has been years since I last went to the cricket and I now follow it on the radio.

We probably all need to get a grip here. Let’s just remember its a game that can go for 5 days without a result, involves lots of standing around or sitting in the sheds by its participants and is played by few people in a very small handful of countries. To overcome it's obvious boredom factor, it has to invent excitement by surrounding itself by statistics. It has ex and current players whose claim to fame is drinking themselves into oblivion on airplanes, pestering half the female world with phone messages or who get a flogging in nightclubs..

Lets all face reality here fellas. It’s as boring as…….

I am a cricket tragic. I read this article in The Australian and around the same time, another by Mike (the Bombay duck) Coward who has a real "thing" about changes in the locus of cricketing power. Many Australian cricketers believe that it is in the game's best interest to have a strong England side. If they are competitive, then we will see record crowds that Mr Coward's favorites can never eclipse.

Cricket can be as boring as "bat shhitte" but let's face it ... it's Johnny Howard's favourite game. Anyway, why does the Neu! track "Negativland" end so suddenly? That's a much bigger question. And is there really background noise on The Fall's "Telephone Thing" about 3.15 into the song?

Lieber Honig