If you are reading this in Australia, then you maybe suffering from Ashes lag? Or perhaps you burned the midnight oil to watch Mark Webber become the first Aussie in over a quarter-century to win a Formula One grand prix (which is all the more impressive since he broke his leg in a charity bicycle race in Tasmania last November). Maybe it was Le Tour that got us staying up late into la nuit. Doubtless, some racked up a night-time hat-trick, flicking furiously between all three.

For the armchair sports fan, it's not the tyranny of distance that's the problem during the northern summer, but the trickiness of the time difference - nine hours between the east coast of Australia and the south coast of Wales. Sports-induced sleep deprivation. I wonder how much it costs the national economy? At least it combines two of Australia's great passions: the love of sporting world-beaters and, the following morning, the love of world-beating coffee.

Confessedly, I fell asleep with my earphones in at about two in the morning, and then went on to have the cricketing equivalent of a new father's interrupted sleep - awoken by screaming commentators, rather than a screaming baby. So since there was no further wicket in the final 40 minutes of play, I was away with the fairies when the England bowler, James Anderson, needed all those glove changes, the time-wasting tactics which provided the early morning headline: Ponting Slams England's Sportsmanship.

With characteristic bluntness, this is what the cricket writer Malcolm Conn has had to say on the matter: "The England captain is either a weak leader,'"said Conn, "or has no idea about the spirit of cricket." Ricky Ponting's press conference comments are also getting a frequent airing. He described the time-wasting tactics as "pretty ordinary" and not in the spirit of the game.

But for all its controversies, the dramatic end to the First Test showed that hopefully we are in for another classic series - lacking the high quality of the 2005 series, perhaps, but filled the same high tension.

Overall, I thought the first test in Cardiff reinforced a few points in some of the last few blogs and undercut some of the others. There was further evidence of the cricketing celebritocracy, with the Australian WAGS in prominent attendance (some traditionalists, veteran players among them, have argued they should not have come over until much later in the tour). We've also heard from the cricketing MAGs - mothers and girlfriends. In the tabloid press and on tabloid tv, Mitchell Johnson's mum has complaining about the influence of his fiancé, the model Jessica Bratich.

For all that, the Aussies showed a lot of the toughness, doggedness, bloody-mindedness and team spirit that were the hallmarks of the Waugh, Taylor and Border eras. They made England field for more than 12 hours, after all, and piled misery upon misery by racking up four individual centuries. The fear factor might have been diluted, but Ricky Ponting's new-look side showed itself to be formidable nonetheless.

The cricket writer Gideon Haigh also highlighted one of the great flaws in much of the pre-match commentary. When Australia's bowling attack was compared with England's bowling attack, it was thought to be weaker. But the true and relevant comparison should have been between Australia's bowling attack and England's batting line-up.

I thought the television and radio coverage of this Test Match reinforced one of the points made in the "Pom influence" blog and how the broadcast media, in particular, reinforces it.
Readers outside of Australia might be surprised to hear that the two television stations covering the Ashes, SBS and Fox Sports, both rely on the commentary feed from Sky Sports in Britain. Similarly, ABC Grandstand is relying upon the BBC's Test Match Special - although, happily, ABC's Jim Maxwell is an integral part of the team.

As a Pom, it's always comforting, and faintly nostalgic, to hear the commentary of Jonathan Agnew and Henry Blofeld. But perhaps if Kerry O'Keefe was on hand, his cackle would have made it all but impossible to fall asleep...

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Kevin Rudd has been in Rome this week, but do not expect him to cry 'Civis Romanus Sum' when its comes to the case of Stern Hu, Australian national and Rio Tinto executive detained in Shanghai on suspicion of spying and stealing state secrets. Roman citizens could expect to be protected by the Roman empire if ever they were taken in custody on foreign soil. The British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, liked to think that Britons were afforded that same entitlement, as well. But Kevin Rudd has taken a very different approach with China, such is the worry about offending Australia's second biggest trading partner.

In Canberra, the relationship with Beijing is a matter of extremely careful calibration - and especially so for the Mandarin-speaking Mr Rudd, who has long been sensitive to the 'Manchurian candidate' jibe.

No doubt wishing to play on this, the opposition has been calling on him to take a tougher line over Mr Hu's detention, and to publicly voice his concerns to China. As they have delighted in pointing out, he has the linguistic skills to do so.

But speaking to an ABC reporter in Italy, all Mr Rudd would say was that his government was moving 'calmly, methodically, and step by step' - which happens to be a pretty neat summation of his governing philosophy. (When Mr Rudd was asked about asylum seekers earlier this week in Malaysia, he offered the same formulation, saying it was being dealt with in a 'methodical, calm, effective way.')

Certainly, the relationship with China is vital, especially when the Australian economy is teetering on the brink of a technical recession. Only this week, the Reserve Bank of Australia cited the strengthening of the Chinese economy as a key factor in its decision to keep interest rates on hold.

Still, it is wrong to argue that Australia's prosperity is solely China's gift, the modern-day variant of Donald Horne's 'Lucky Country' argument back at the start of the 1960s that Australia's status as a resources powerhouse helped compensate for unimaginative political leadership ('Australia is a lucky country, run by second-rate people who share its luck,' is his book's most ringing quote).

After all, the resources boom really only kicked in around 2003, and Australia has enjoyed 17 years of economic growth. Similarly, the key market for Australian coal is Japan rather than China.

So is the Rudd government being too meek in its dealings with China, over the Hu case and in general, and are the Chinese taking advantage of this timidity?

This is the view of Greg Sheridan, the foreign editor of The Australian: "There is an air of contempt in the way the Chinese authorities have failed to respond to Australian government requests for information and for consular access to Mr Hu until today.

"What does the much touted Australia-China relationship add up to if Beijing treats Canberra with such conspicuous discourtesy and indifference?"

In recent weeks, we have heard Mr Rudd speak Spanish and Italian in public. But don't expect to hear that Latin location, Civis Romanus Sum, any time soon.

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Dazzling and disorientating, two glamorous front covers from two of this month's glossy magazines show the new, emergent face of Australian cricket. One features the Australian vice-captain, Michael Clarke, dressed in a range of fashion forward clobber, which includes a designer leather jacket and tight, metallic denim jeans. The other features Mitchell Johnson's girlfriend, Jessica Bratich wearing significantly less apparel: a green and gold bikini emblazoned with the Southern Cross.

Both underscore how the culture of Australian cricket is changing, and why the Australians are no longer the outfit they once were. They serve as reminders that the comparative decline of Australian cricket is not limited to the exodus of playing legends but extends to its off-field philosophy and dressing room culture.

The focus naturally has been on the absence of Shane Warne, Glenn McGrath, Adam Gilchrist, Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden. But something else is missing, as well: the sheer bloody-mindedness of the Border years, and the austerity and discipline of the Waugh era. But the winning Australian cricket culture been also contaminated by the fripperies of Australia's celebrity culture, as the fear factor has come to vie with the celebrity X Factor.

In this new celebritocracy, Michael Clarke and Lara Bingle are obviously cast as Posh and Becks; Brett Lee is celebrated as much for his Bollywood melodies as his chin music; and Mitchell Johnson achieves almost as much fame as the torso of the 'Men of Cricket' calendar as the tormentor of visiting batsmen. After being sent home from England in disgrace, Andrew Symonds meets the televisual requirements of the age by seeking prime-time, public redemption: a soft-focus confessional on Sixty Minutes.

As Jessica Bratich reminds us, the WAGs - wives and girlfriends - have also come to enjoy a much higher public profile, which is sometimes more Lads mag than Ladies pavilion. In announcing his retirement, Matthew Hayden spoke wistfully of the "brothers of the Baggy Green". But the WAGs have encroached on this male dominion.

Ashes winning captains of recent vintage have sought to reinforce the team's rich cultural heritage. Steve Waugh heightened the veneration of the Baggy Green, a surprisingly recent "tradition," by ordering every player to wear it during the side's first fielding session. Then there have been those graveside visits to Gallipoli and other European battlefields where Australian diggers shed their blood en route to Britain, and the quasi-religious significance of the team song, Under the Southern Cross, which is belted out in the dressing room at the conclusion of every victory.

This high holy ritual became the focus of a dressing room spat at the end of the home series against the South Africans, when Simon Katich took exception to Michael Clarke reportedly wanting to hurry up the singing of the song so he could leave the dressing room. Traditionalists saw it as powerfully emblematic: a clash of cricketing civilisations, in which the old rubbed up against the new. Simon Katich was cast as the preserver of traditions.

Of course, it would be foolish to write off the Australians as a bunch of starry-eyed softies. Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey remain some of the most serious-minded of modern-day cricketers. And the great blonded one himself, Shane Warne, wasn't exactly a shrinking violet on the celebrity circuit.

But there is a strong sense that the Australians are not as single-minded as once they were, and therefore should not be feared to anywhere near the same extent. Ask yourself which one would you rather face. Steve Waugh in his fanatical pomp? Or Michael Clarke in those fantastical designer pants?

We have entered a new era in which Australian cricket has become more metrosexual than macho. More hair gel than zinc cream. More tight metallic denim than conventional baggy green.

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