AUSTRALIA: Eng. (270) won by 14 runs

I"M AT: The Pink House, which is a place you should never go to should you need ask for a taxi to take you there, especially one driven by a large and glaringly heterosexual gentleman.

So, I'm in Sydney for just one full day, and I've done the touristy thing - walked round the Botanical Gardens to the Opera House - which is tiled, white and grey, and really scaly up close, but as mesmerising as it looks in the photos - walked round Farm Cove to Circular Quay, got a ferry out to North Shore then walked back over the Harbour Bridge, sat in a park for a bit, decided not to go into the Museum of Australia cos it was too expensive, walked to the Anzac Memorial and took pictures of a statue of an Unknown Soldier crucified by his own sword, made by a guy who served at the Somme, and then walked into Chinatown, where I am now, and where I intend to feed my face.

And later I'm going to Manly Beach for a walk, maybe in the rain, cos it's just started to thunder.

So what can I say so far other than there are millions of tourists here, it's very hot (much hotter than New Zealand), it's full of young fit folk, and there are skyscrapers and stuff. I'm sure you're thanking me right now for such insight.

I'm off to Melbourne tomorrow to watch England take on the Aussies, in the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which holds 120,000 people and will therefore be the largest stadium I've ever been to. It was the venue where England first played Australia in a Test match, too. And quite frankly I'm more excited than is healthy.

But it looked until last night that it'd be Aus v New Zealand, and in the last fortnight I've joked with the folk I've met that I'd be there as an honorary Kiwi for the day. Christ, I should imagine they'll be feeling ruined with disappointment right now. As chance would have it I was watching last night's decider in the Empire Bar, near the hostel, with a Kiwi, a bloke from Christchurch in fact, from where I'd just flown, and he couldn't have been any nicer. Even when, fuelled by Victoria Bitter, I started cheering at every dot ball.

Garry mate; I'm sorry. But it was a Pom with the ticket, so it's only right and proper that the Poms are, against the odds, playing. COME ON!