England and Australia are currently at a draw in the Ashes cricket series. This is about as far as my understanding/interest of cricket goes and I’ll be quite amazed if I got that fact right.

But as it still tis the season and the cricket seems important I thought I should make a Christmassy artwork about this event before the holidays arrive.

Due to a current overabundance of snow in London I thought I would do my bit for the country and gather up some of it into this  snowman. I’ve used him to depict what I see as the English attitude to competitive sport.

England vs Australia Ashes

In the UK they have this children’s Christmas movie they watch every year. I was recently introduced to it. The film is called The Snowman and it is incredibly boring, depressing and disturbing, all at once.

What I can remember from the bits I managed to stay awake for is the following…

A small child makes a snowman who comes to life. He (the child) then sneaks this adult (who has had no police background checks and refuses to even speak) into his house. He tries to stop him waking his parents, almost as though he instinctively knows his parents would be disturbed to find them alone together.

The snowman then abducts him from the home, takes him (on a motorbike!) to a party with other snowmen of unknown backgrounds and character. I then fell asleep but apparently Santa was at the party. Maybe some other things happen, though I doubt it.

They then return home and the boy wakes to find… that the snowman has melted to death!

It ends with the boy standing silently weeping over the corpse of his new friend. Credits roll. Merry Christmas!

The English find this tale of death and loss FESTIVE!

A story of a boy hanging out with a friend who has melted to death within a day of meeting is not happy. I think the English are the same about their sport.

They hope that they will have many days of victory and joy and happiness with their national sporting teams. They even let themselves begin to get excited occasionally.

But when they then fail everyone immediately says they expected it all along. They stand with their shoulders slumped in the snow, staring at yet another corpse that was once their dreams of victory, and they sigh and say ‘this is just how it has to be’.

They resign themselves to the philosophy that it was to be expected; the English team always loses and the snow man had to melt before too much fun could be had.

All that is missing from the usual English cricket match is a sorrowful choir boy singing ‘I’m walking in the air’ to accompany the team walking back into the changerooms.

Whereas while the English are watching this fun cartoon of death over the Christmas holiday, Australians watch the yearly Boxing Day cricket test. Hence we are less imaginative or musical in our cricket support during the festive season but at least we get straight to the point.

So this artwork is a snowman to represent The Snowman who represents England’s melted dreams of success in sport.

And my main point is, if the English win the Ashes then they’ll be happy for a bit but eventually they will go back to being depressed and standing in a cold puddle of dead hope and lost childhood. And also it’s just a game so let’s not get worked up about it and I don’t even watch it so who cares.

On the other hand, if Australia win then cricket is awesome, as are we and our non melty snowmen, and in your face England!

Anyway, Happy Christmas. I’m going to spend it surrounded by snow and making snowmen friends who I then play cricket against. Let’s see you grip a bat, melty! One nil Australia!

*Oh, I forgot, the most annoying part of the Snowman is there is NO talking throughout. It is all to music. How long do they think a child’s/my attention span is?!

Oh and also the cartoon is unrealstic because even a magical motorbike-riding snowman would be unable to get around amidst the transport chaos Britain is swamped in at the first signs of snow. For shame Snowman!