Freud's dislike of Australians is linked to Ashes team

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday July 4, 2009

Phillip Derriman

CLEMENT FREUD, the English humourist-broadcaster-politician who died a couple of months ago, seemed intent on offending Australians. Asked during a visit here which city he preferred, Sydney or Melbourne, he replied, "It's like comparing leprosy with syphilis." He also had this to say: "In England, many men take sexual pleasures with women beneath their social station. As it must be difficult to find anyone beneath the social station of an Australian, you [Australian men] could be missing out on a lot of fun."Why did Freud dislike us so much? There may be a clue in an incident during a London dinner attended by the Australian cricket team in 1972. Freud was at the dinner and, as one of the Australian team recalled this week, he reacted testily when an Australian player put a packet of cigarettes on the table. "I trust you don't intend to smoke any of those things," Freud said in an icy voice.Immediately, word spread among the Australian players about the up-himself Englishman who objected to their smoking. From then on, various Australian players took it in turns to stand close to Freud's chair on the pretext of yarning to players sitting near him and blow cigar smoke over him. Freud would have known what they were up to, which may help explain his aversion to Australians thereafter.What does all this have to do with anything? Well, late that same night after the dinner, when the Australian players were apparently the worse for wear, the team went to a studio to record a couple of songs in male-chorus style, one of which was Here Come The Aussies.It happens that this song is one of 17 cricket songs re-released on Stumped! Songs We Love About Cricket, a CD that SBS is marketing to coincide with its Ashes telecasts. Cricket author Kersi Meher-Homji does the notes to the CD. Promos for the CD, which includes three tracks by Paul Kelly and two by John Williamson, will be heard during breaks in play.One cricket fan emailed Square Eyes this week to say that the biggest inducement for him to watch the Ashes telecasts would be the prospect of seeing Phillip Hughes in action. "I think that large numbers of Australians will sit down at their TVs next Wednesday evening with the express hope of watching Hughes bat," he wrote. "If it were Matt Hayden and Justin Langer again, not nearly as many. If on the other hand England is batting and I see Brett Lee measuring out his run to bowl the first over, I'll be tempted to switch to the History Channel for some riveting documentary on who really did kill Julius Caesar and why."How many do choose to watch, and perhaps why, will become clear after the first Test starts on Wednesday. SBS and Fox Sports will both have their usual Australian commentary teams on duty. In SBS's case, this will consist of Stuart MacGill, Greg Matthews and Damien Martyn in a Sydney studio and Rodney Hogg on the ground in England. A number of former players will also make appearances, among them Neil Harvey, Bob Simpson, Doug Walters, Brian Booth and Rick McCosker.Fox Sports will field its usual cricket panellists Allan Border, Mark Waugh, Brendon Julian, Greg Blewett, and Damien Fleming while both SBS and Fox will take the same feed from Sky Sport, whose commentators will include Ian Botham, David Gower, Michael Holding and, of course, Shane Warne.One of the Paul Kelly songs on the new CD is his calypso-style tribute to Warne, titled simply Shane Warne. "We wondered what will Warney do next," Kelly sings. We still do.