English give Australian cricket fans taste of their own medicine

THE AGE - English cricket fans have given Australians a taste of their own medicine by buying the lion's share (pun intended) of tickets for the upcoming Ashes to be played on Australian soil this summer.

Brits holidaying in Australia have flaunted the system to allow them to buy tickets that should only be available to Australian Cricket Family members. In one extreme case, and English university student bought 28 Ashes tickets and then posted them on eBay at hugely inflated prices.

"There's no question I'm an England fan," he said. "And I'm sick to death of all the tickets for the games in England being bought out by drunken Australian expats who swarm to the games from their Earl's Court dives. Now it's payback time, you whinging Aussies."

Hundreds of Cricket Australia Family members contacted the Age to vent their fury about English fans buying up their tickets. The process was farcical and a joke, they said. So are games between Australia and Bangaldesh, though the relevance is unclear.

"I'm sure there will be plenty of Australians around at the cricket anyway," said one English cricket fan. "It will just have to be somewhere else. Maybe a local field where you can play a game instead of using it as a pissweak excuse to get drunk and spend time with your family."

Paul Morgan is devastated he will not be taking his three sons, Ryan, Scott and Cameron (pictured right with long hair), to the Sydney Test. "With three fanatical boys who have attended every Sydney Test for the past eight years I would personally like to thank James Sutherland for screwing the Australian cricket family over," Mr Morgan said.

"But I've promised the boys some tickets to The Boy from Oz so I know their hearts won't be entirely broken. I don't know what I'd do if we missed out on those as well... What? It's sold out as well? F$#k! Hand me a pistol."

John Howard expressed disgust over the situation until he was reminded that his tickets were already sorted - bought from Tony Blair through eBAY with the surplus from Costello's latest budget.

Iran President bans all Western music - rest of the world supports ban on "You've Had A Bad Day"

TEHRAN, Iran - Hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has banned all Western music from Iran's state radio and TV stations. Not because it is offensive to Muslims, but just because "A lot of it's crap."

World leaders were quick to condemn the action and nearly as quick to pass similar laws through their own respective parliaments. There are significant differences though in the approaches followed.

In the U.S, President George Bush has signed a bill pushed through by his republican colleagues to outlaw any music he doesn't currently have on his iPod, leaving the entire Sesame Street back catalogue and one song by Garth Brookes, "Oh, Barbara" unscathed.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair has banned all music in which his guitar playing does not feature. Facing the prospect of having to endlessly repeat the eleven tracks from the debut album put out by his old band "Ugly Rumours", Radio1, Radio2 and Capital FM have shut down with immediate effect. Virgin will remain open according to Richard Branson:

"Eleven tracks? That's five more tracks than we normally play every day.", said the Virgin Boss pictured above, "I think it may be time to expand the Virgin radio operations. Now watch me fly, 'vrrrmmmmm'."

French President Jacque Chirac has instituted a new law stating that 95% of all music on radio stations must be French... although this restriction has been in place for the last twenty years anyway. Representatives from other nations stated they would not retaliate with a similar action against French music because they don't play any of it anyway, except for that "Sexy Boy" song by Air and that song by Plastic Bertrand, and he's Belgian, and at least they make good chocolate and beer. Something that can not be said for the French.