By Phil Long BBC Sport Online's man with the Barmy Army

Never one to take the easy option, I arrived bleary-eyed for England's final tour game against Queensland less than two hours arriving at Brisbane Airport.

It might only have been a warm-up game but form me it meant, after six months hard graft and saving, that the 2002-03 Ashes tour was up and running.

Hopefully, what unfolded over the first two days won't turn out to be an early indication of the forthcoming series.

Queensland turned up the heat on the worryingly toothless England attack by posting almost 600.

The prospect of Australia posting over 500 under a blazing sun with no mercy from the barrack boys in the cheap seats is a really unpleasant scenario.

It may have been because of that Queensland score, or the fact that England have not been at the Ashes races for 16 years.

In fact, I doubt there can have been an Ashes series expected to be so one-sided as the one that begins to unfold at the Gabba on Thursday.

Ask any Aussie (never the most bashful people in the world) who will win and they will look you up and down very slowly, and then laugh in your face.

For them it is more a case of whether the weather or the Australian hunger for success will allow them to wallop us 5-0 with each Test completed in three days.

Their optimism is shared by the bookmakers, who have the 5-0 scoreline as the favourite outcome of the series.