Welcome to The Gabba. Here's Harmison to get the series underway . . . and England has lost The Ashes!!

There was absolutely no question which side was going to get the upper hand on the first day of this Ashes tour. It was all in the body language.

The Aussie openers charged out to the wicket with flames spurting from their helmet grilles - while England had a little cuddle, then allowed a terrified looking Harmison to deliver the most comical ball in Test cricket history - straight to his startled skipper at second slip!

In fact, as soon as England opted for Ashley Giles over cult-hero Monty Panesar, the die was cast. Feeble, feeble, feeble England. Hopefully the groans of disappointment from tens of thousands of fans who had waited up until midnight to see or listen to the start could be heard in the England dressing room in Brisbane.

Those watching on satellite telly had the advantage over listening on radio.

After six overs at least I had the happy option, which I exercised, of switching over to 'G-Spot XXX Fantasy' and watching a few sparsely-clad lovelies do their best to entice me to call them for some one-to-one horny chat.

Well, Mandy on line two was available and it was only £12.50 a minute from my mobile so it would have been churlish not to oblige.

"What can I do for you, honey?" she asked, massaging bits of herself with what looked like a passable swing bowlers grip and action. "I don't know," I replied, "are you as disappointed as I am not to see Monty take the field?"

"What's that honey? You want the full Monty? I'll give you the full Monty. Just stay on the line and let me show you and tell you. Oooh yeah, honey . . . " and so on for about 80-quids worth of telephone time.

Not convinced that Mandy fully understood what was happening at The Gabba, I half-heartedly knocked one out just to be polite and rang off.

Switching back to Sky Sports, there was genuine excitement as Flintoff took the first wicket and for a few overs we looked like making a game of it. But in the overs before lunch it became more and more difficult to remain interested.

As England left the field to chew over their lacklustre start. Jacko took to his bed.

I won't be stopping up late for day two.