US woman @theashes gives in to Twitter, flies to Sydney

A US children's nanny whose boyfriend gave her the twitter handle @theashes, prompting a flurry of confusing messages by cricket-loving tweeters as a result, has made it Down Under for the final test match in Sydney. Ashley Kerekes, 22, had turned on text notification for new messages on her phone. As a result she received a …

[Anonymous Coward]

the bearded wonder

ahem. 24 years.

[James Hughes 1]

Annoyingly

An Australian colleague has taken this moment to take a couple of weeks holiday so gloating opportunities are severely limited.

And he's gone to Barbados as well, so that's a double whammy.

Selfish bastard.

[Seanmon]

What..

..the hell is this "cricket" thing everyone's on about?

sincerely,

Everyone,

Scotland.

[g e]

Cricket

is like golf but with a bigger ball and no holes

[Magnus_Pym]

Can't you read?

It's a combination of baseball and chess. I guess it's like these this crowd of people who try to eat and/or drink themselves to death while some guys play with a bat and ball in a field... ...only there's loads of time where nothing is happening.

[Scorchio!!]

Re: Can't you read?

An excellent summary, 'Sir Magnus'. Now for your defection to the east! Yours, 'Poppy'.

[Fred Dibnah]

It's....

...an ancient and subtle game played all over the world, but at which (like football) Scotland is not very good.

[Anonymous Coward]

stick to fixing chimneys

Your geography is not very good.

Its a game played only in ex English Empire countries which are spread around the world. But not in the rest of Europe, the Americas, Russia, China, Japan, most of Africa. And best left to the English and their descendants to play.

[Michael Dunn]

Not only British Commonwealth

There is a Holland team!

[John 62]

Scotland Cricket Team

The Scotland Cricket Team is improving and ambitious. Not quite at Ireland's level yet, but then I'm biased.

[BongoJoe]

But...

...you ought to know.

Scotland are one of the Minor Counties.

[Velv]

Scotland...

and the article didn't even mention the World Cup in 1966.

p.s.

Cricket is a great sport for Scotland. Get to drink beer in the sun all day, and retire to the clubhouse when it rains.

[Anonymous Coward]

As if you didn't know already.

",,,the hell is this "cricket" thing everyone's on about?"

It's one of a myriad of sports/games England has a superiority complex about. Except for maybe chess and baseball (or is it rounders)?

[Andrew Smith]

er

There are more cricket clubs per head in Scotland than England & Wales. It's just the weather is rubbish so you don't get to play that much, just imagine if the weather was good you could be as good as New Zealand!

[Camilla Smythe]

Cricket Is

That thing my Father would fall asleep to in front of the TV.

This would give me the opportunity to change channels whereupon he would wake up and proclaim.

'Oi, I was watching that!'

As you might guess having switched back to the Cricket he would dose off again.

[Ad Fundum]

Hmmm

This is the most non-story ever published. It's worse than all the Paris Hilton ones put together.

Utterly brilliant.

[Elmer Phud]

like wot she said

""It's like chess and baseball combined," she said."

yup, sort of

[bleh_meh]

Not as bad as The Hoff

Thats a better analogy than David Hasselhoff who after facing a few balls from Shane Warne in the nets spoke about Warne's pitching.

Then again, it's from people who beleive that the champion baseball team in their country are winners of the world series!!

[kain preacher]

Wait

You mean ther other countries in the world other than Canada and America ?

[Chris Dupont]

If the power of her cricket disinterest can get the young lady to Australia...

... then *my* disinterest should be powerful enough to make me the first human to leave the galaxy.

[Anonymous Coward]

Chess & baseball?

I can't think of two more boring spectator sports, except possibly bowling and golf. Is it really THAT boring??

[Anonymous Coward]

More boring game?

I can think of one straight off - football. An hour and a half of play and there's a good chance there won't even be a single goal... how incredibly dull. ;p

[foo_bar_baz]

"An hour and a half of play and"

"there's a good chance there won't even be a single goal."

Like sex for most women, then. Or so I'm told, I wouldn't know.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not witty enough to think of a good one

I think an hour and a half is rather an exaggeration.

[ratfox]

Cricket

Is the result of English people inventing games with more and more complex rules every time another country gets better than them at existing ones.

[david wilson]

@ratfox

Though at least we don't invent one that no-one else wants to play, and with a fantastic display of self-mockery and irony, call the national championship the World Series.

[M7S]

Maybe it was all a bit of really clever cyber-squatting

Now if I get a twitter address a bit like @London2012, I rather think I'd be done for something rather than getting my travel and hotel paid after professing ignorance of glorified running races.

Maybe she just chose carefully and played the part long enough to get the reward. IF so, kudos.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've already got

@WorldCup2014 !!!

[Sir Adam-All]

erm

English empire ????

Should that not read BRITISH empire ?!

[bill 36]

eh no

English Empire , i chose my words carefully!

[Dave Cradle]

No offence meant, but...

Carefully, but incorrectly.

Just because you wish history happened in a way more to your current political liking doesn't mean it was so. There are many Scots, Welsh and even Irish that made important contributions to the terror that was the British Empire.

[Anonymous Coward]

No

It was always the English empire, just as in all documents it used to be referred to as England, up until the 1930's, when the Scottish National Party decided to take umbrage and change the naming conventions, forcing on us Britain and the various constituent parts of the United Kingdom being named.

There are still some tomes released regarding England and calling it as such in the traditional manner, i.e. in modern parlance the United Kingdom.

[Random Bit]

British Empire it was

I could not let such a blatant mis-representation of history pass. A quick search of Hansard archives from 1803 to 2005 provides us with an easy quantifiable proof.

The term “British Empire” gives us 15,480 results starting with the Kings speech of 1803.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/search/%22British%20empire%22?sort=date

A search of “English Empire” returns a mere 40 including a number of false results such as ‘English empirical tradition’.

http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/search/%22english%20empire%22?sort=date

[david wilson]

@AC

>>"It was always the English empire, just as in all documents it used to be referred to as England"

It seems that in reality, people were talking about a 'British Empire' even well before the Act of Union, which was itself seemingly prompted to some extent by the failure of a Scottish attempt to start a foreign colony.

Though no doubt, that was all England's fault as well, just like everything else that ever happened.

And presumably, unlike everyone else, the /Scots/ who participated in the slave trade were only doing so unwillingly and under great duress, and not out of any personal greed, and in fact cried every time they wheeled their profits to the bank.

[Anonymous Coward]

well at leasted you corrected the article

even if you didn't post my comment