Why do I love the Ashes?

Due to start on the 25th of November, the Ashes sees the fourth and fifth best teams (out of nine...) in the world begin a five match test series taking us over Christmas and well into 2011. To some, this might sound like the most interminably boring thing imaginable, but to cricket fans (well, a good chunk of them) its pure heaven.

But why? For me, a simple English fellow, there's something extra special about the Down Under version of the Ashes. There's something alluring about stretching your sanity to breaking point by pushing ever further into the depths of the night your bedtime, and who doesn't love drifting off to sleep with Jonathan Agnew's dulcet tones ringing in your ears. Then there's those few seconds when you wake up, completely in the dark even when you're no longer in the dark, before you manage to log onto your iPhone or Blackberry and see who took the initiative while you were dozing. 

I'll then spend the rest of the morning gorging myself to the point of breaking on the goings on of the night before - the broadsheet reviews, the Cricinfo take, and of course what Twitter made of the whole shebang. Chances of getting any work done before lunch in December? Not good I'm afraid. And of course there's the Christmas and New Year tests, where I can get away with not going to bed at all. 

Watching Ashes cricket at four in the morning while bundling the inevitable pairs of socks I got for Christmas? I can't think of anything I'd rather be doing. So it might not be the two best teams in the world going toe-to-toe, we have to wait for India v South Africa in December for that pleasure, but its England and Australia, in the middle of the night, for a tiny little urn filled with the remains of a burnt bail. You can't beat the thrill of the Ashes in Australia for me.