Several times today the Barmy Army bugler Billy Cooper showed off a new addition to his repertoire: the Last Post. This is mine at Eye on the Ashes. I have filed a report for Guardian Unlimited, and a series round up for the newspaper, so here are just a few passing observations.

Andrew Flintoff spoke well at his press conference – as well as he has, at least. He wore his England cap, as he usually does: a statement of allegiance now that the statement of intent is irrelevant. He was asked some good questions, and gave no excuses. Christopher Martin-Jenkins asked him about England’s circumscribed preparation. Flintoff declined to use it as a prop for England’s meekness at Brisbane: ‘I was ready to play a Test match.’ The question remains, I think, whether he was ready to play a Test match against Australia in Australia.

Justin Langer, Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath bounced beautifully off one another. Langer, as ever, spoke in tongues, saying that he was upset on the eve of the match, although this did not upset him: ‘I’d be upset if I wasn’t upset about it.’ Unimproveable. Asked about what he would do with his cap, he said he thought it deserved the protection of thick glass, not the cap from the outside world, but the outside world from the cap, which stank to high heaven. ‘He’ll have to find something else to wear to bed now,’ said McGrath. In fact, I’ll miss Warne and McGrath for their comic timing as well as their cricket.
‘5-0,’ said McGrath, a propos of nothing, as he sat down
‘It’s nice that Pigeon got one right,’ said Warne.
‘I only got one wrong,’ retorted McGrath. Pure gold.
Ponting himself looked slightly flushed, maybe even a little teary. He admitted, in fact, to avoiding TV cameras on the field, as he had been feeling quite emotional.

Me, I'm beat. I’ve written more than 100,000 words in the last six weeks for various outlets, so I must confess to feeling a selfish pleasure at the last day of the series. The Australians have been scintillating to watch, like the Harlem Globetrotters in their skill; England have looked, not surprisingly, like the Washington Generals. I’m delighted for Warne, McGrath and Langer that they should have gone out under circumstances that became them. There is a sneaking satisfaction, too, that Rudi Koertzen is one series closer to retirement.

Thanks to those who corresponded, except to those who were deliberately or gratuitously unpleasant, who I hope suffer miserable lives and painful deaths. Comments to blogs are evidently as graffiti to the toilet door: inevitable but greatly varying in quality. My favourite comment was Crullers’ timely recollection of the Wonder Twins. Thanks to those who were so solicitous of Trumper the Cat: alive, well, and probably asleep at home in Melbourne, in my girlfriend’s tender care.

As I compose this last post in the SCG press box, far beneath me on the outfield there continues a long, sprawling, noisy and cheerful game of cricket using bins, plastic bats and tennis balls. Over the last three or so hours, it has involved about a hundred people, from children of six to men of sixty, plus a score of girls, all either groundstaff, caterers, or bar staff. That must be almost as reassuring a sight for Australian cricket as what we saw this morning. Now, it’s back to the studio.

	'This is his 50th Test, and Harmison is a middling first-change bowler: the personification of English underachievement' © Getty Images

Steve Harmison bowled pretty well yesterday and fronted the media last night with rather more fight and aggression than he showed in his first over in Brisbane. ‘At the end of the day I don’t know what else we could have done.’ ‘At the end of the day I try my hardest’. That’s the trouble, really: from Harmison, it’s always at the end of the day. This is his 50th Test, and he is a middling first-change bowler: the personification of English underachievement.

Having loosened up, Harmison also gave a surly interview to Mike Atherton on Sky. Was he sad to be going home at the end of the match? No. Looking forward to putting his feet up. What would he be doing to make sure he was ready for the first test of the English summer? Didn’t know: waiting for Duncan Fletcher to tell him. I'll give him points for candour, but the sentiment was subtly revealing.

You'd never catch an Australian player giving an interview so doltish and doleful. Then again, this is also the man quoted a couple of days ago by my esteemed Guardian colleague, Richard Williams, as saying: ‘The only reason why people are saying all these things about under-preparation and loss of team spirit is because we're 4-0 down. If we were 4-0 up they wouldn't be saying any of it.’ Well, yes, and were I Harmy’s height, noone would call me ‘Shorty’. Frankly, he may not be that much of a loss to this touring party: a fast bowler of enormous gifts, but a cricketer who makes Martin McCague look like a lionheart.

	© Getty Images

Branson’s grasp of the Ashes, it is fair to say, is not sophisticated; but nor is the issue itself completely straightforward, because the trophy is twice incarnated, as the Ashes (Actual) and the Ashes (Symbol). For those who’ve just joined us, let me briefly explain.

The Ashes (Symbol) derive from the original death notice for English cricket in the Sporting Times after the Oval Test of 1882, placed there by Reginald Brooks aka Watkinshaw, a pioneering work of English sporting masochism but also a riff on the cremation debate. The first cremation in England wasn’t until January 1884 - the work of the latterday druid Dr William Price – and it was at the time of the Oval Test a proverbial hot potato.

The Ashes (Actual) were a colonial jest, a present to Ivo Bligh when he led an England team to Australia a few months later. Noone intended them to become a trophy for anything. Marylebone refers to them, rather endearingly, as a ‘love token’, for one of the instigators of the gesture, Florence Morphy, married Bligh: they became Lord and Lady Darnley.

You can trace the modern history of the Ashes (Symbol) to England’s 1903-4 tour of Australia – the first under Marylebone’s auspices – when the visitors won 3-2. England’s captain Pelham Warner adopted the ‘Ashes’ as a motif for his team’s quest, and wrote a book called ‘How We Recovered the Ashes’. He, however, seems to have been referring to the obituary, not to the urn, which he had never seen. Competition, moreover, actually proceeded for some years without precise agreement about what the Ashes (Symbol) actually denoted. When England visited Australia in 1920-21, for instance, captain Johnny Douglas denied absolutely that the Ashes were at stake. ‘As to the ‘Ashes’,’ he told Australians, ‘people here seem to be labouring under a wrong impression. When an English team took them home [England] some years ago, my idea was that they were to stay there until an Australian XI went home next year to recover them. In the meantime I have just brought an XI here to get some practice for that great occasion.’ In other words, Douglas believed that the Ashes were only at stake on English soil. Not surprisingly, this cut no ice in Australia; the only practice that Douglas’s team experienced was at losing, incurring five consecutive defeats.

It’s possible, I think, to have a civilised disagreement about this. I can understand why some regard the separate existences of the Ashes (Actual) and the Ashes (Symbol) as sub-optimal. Imagine if Arthurian legend ended with Gawain telling Lancelot: ‘I’ve quite a nice cup at home that would pass for a grail. Sod this quest - let’s go jousting instead.’ No Australian expects the Ashes to feature in an extravagant presentation ceremony, manhandled by horny-handed, Foster’s-flourishing cricketers. They simply crave the custody of an object that, originating in Australia, is as much part of its past as England’s.

That, however, is an argument to do with modern sentiment, not with history. The historical argument is cut and dried: Australia is not entitled to the Ashes (Actual). There’s even something slightly petulant and adolescent about the protest: ‘Awwwww, everyone else’s got a trophy. Why can weeeeeee have one too?’ Myself, while I can accept that others may hold other views, I like the difference. To me, Australia and England play for an idea, and should have the courage of the uniqueness of their rivalry. It is for other lesser sports and nations to play for trinkets and gew-gaws.

It was hard to imagine Johnny Carson without Ed McMahon’s preamble: ‘And now, heeeeere’s Johnny.’ But does the world’s greatest Test wicket-taker really need an introduction as elaborate as he received today? Having given his hat to the umpire, dropped his bowling disc on the ground and begun the disposition of his forces, the SCG announcer thundered: ‘Change of bowling at the Randwick End. Ladies and gentlemen, would you please make welcome…[wait for it]…Shane Warne!’ Was this to distinguish him from Shane Watson, perhaps?
It’s fair to say that this was not a talent the announcer confined to Warne. When play resumed after rain, the umpires were greeted like long lost friends. ‘Ladies and gentleman, please welcome onto the SCG, Aleem Dar…and Billy Bowden.’ Such was the pause between the first and second names that one half expected Aleem Dar…and Sir Richard Branson. Not as silly as it sounds.

GOING OFF IN BAGGY GREEN AND GOLD: Seen at Melbourne airport yesterday: the smiling images of Justin Langer and Glenn McGrath exhorting Aussie fans to ‘Go Off In Green and Gold’ this summer. A useful reminder: retirement not only denies Cricket Australia their services as cricketers, but as recognizable and marketable personalities. The rebuilding challenge was embodied in the photo’s third face: Shane Watson. Perhaps Central Casting was asked for a blonde called Shane. There’ll be one fewer in a week.

THE POWER OF GLOVE: They never keep track of the stats that matter. Today I decided to keep track of England’s glove touch rate. Strauss and Cook reached 20 in the ninth over; at one point, Cook was 0 not out with four glove touches. At this point I lost interest, but the standard rate seems to be something around two an over, usually between overs, with an occasional mid-over touch being the pretext for a particularly good leave outside off stump. Can anyone remember where this habit began? Does anyone feel, as do I, the urge to say ‘shazam’ whenever they see it? Do English cricketers now greet people socially with a jab of the fist rather than a handshake?

A BOUNDARY BEYOND: Most journalism is couched as criticism or complaint, so perhaps it’s worth saluting a worthwhile development in this series that may not be immediately obvious to viewers from afar. Cricket Australia have this summer finally reversed the steady tidal encroachments of the boundary rope. At each venue this summer, the rope has been in far enough to guarantee player safety but no more, so batsmen are working just a little harder for their boundaries and spinners have a little more margin for error. To the power of modern high-performance bats, this is an overdue corrective. Another testimony, perhaps, is the effectiveness of the short cover position, where Bell was caught in Perth, Collingwood in Melbourne and Pietersen might have perishing here: recognition that bats encouraging players to go through with shots for the sheer pleasure of the physical release might also tempt them into indiscretion.