Marcus Berkmann: They won. But must they look so bloody pleased?

'These pommies are totally gutless... we want our money back!'

Thank God it's over. It's probably fair to say that most informed fans of English cricket were dreading this series, have endured every agonising second of it with fortitude and can now begin to live their lives again, as though it never happened. I myself am at the first stage in the bereavement process: denial. Ashes? What Ashes? Do you mean to say that there has been a cricket tour going on? Well, well, it totally passed me by! Did we do well?

No, I know this isn't a particularly mature response, but I am struggling to imagine what might be. Blithe indifference? Alcoholism? Mass suicide?

The problems started, as so often in the past, with Glenn McGrath. Much as you can't help admiring the old bastard, whose ability to bowl exactly the same ball tens of thousands of times has brought him more Test wickets (563) than almost anyone elseever, there's something about his regular predictions of a 5-0 victory that makes you want to smash his face in. If he weren't 10 years younger than you and about a foot taller. And if he didn't have lots of friends who might object if you made even a token attempt. It's the terrible smugness I can't bear.

We know that the Australian cricket team is one of the best ever to play the game, that their team was stronger than last time while ours was weaker, that they had home advantage, that they had Troy Cooley, the bowling coach who briefly turned Steve Harmison into a worldbeater and was disgracefully allowed to leave by the halfwits at the ECB.

We know all this and we know that the Australians were determined to make up for their defeat in 2005. But do they have to be so appallingly bloody pleased with themselves?

Already, friends of mine have been assailed by sneering, in-yer-face emails from Australian so-called "friends". "Can it possibly get any worse for England cricket?" writes one, as though threatening to vomit all over your trousers. "These pommies are totally gutless... History is now inevitable for this crap pommie crew. We want our money back!"

Our response, inevitably, is to fall back on the comfortable old imperial stereotype and raise a lordly eyebrowat such antics. As the friend who forwarded this rant to me put it, "Honestly, is this what passes for banter in that facile, convict-strewn dump?" (If you're Australian, and rather dismayed by all this, relax. We are into the realms of what therapists would call "coping strategies".)

Email is of course the perfect medium for letting off steam. Another friend of mine has long had it in for Justin Langer. "Didn't it stir the cockles of your heart to see Justin Langer smiling so joyfully when Hayden hit the winning runs? To see his cherubic little face lit up with pleasure like that. I was so pleased for him." He is beyond denial, and into anger.

Another friend has essentially gone into retreat: he isn't answering emails or the phone and, according to his wife, sits silently in an old armchair for hours thumbing through old Wisdens. "He won't find the answer in there," she says.

I tell her that we are all long past the stage of looking for answers.

In the pub, my friend Chris says that he always thought there was something odd about the 2005 Ashes. Something that didn't sniff quite right. Now, he thinks, normal service has been resumed. In his eyes our most famous victory has been tainted by this most dismal defeat.

And now I must ring up the cable company to switch off the sports channels, which are costing me as much as a moderate drug habit. For that was the best of it, the Test series. Now there are just one-day internationals to lose and the World Cup to be knocked out of in the first round. I barely watched any of it, of course. Too painful. I'd have been better off with the drug habit. Thank God it's over, and roll on the summer.