AS Seventies band 10cc put it, “I don’t like cricket, I love it”. An unusual sentiment I know for an Aberdonian, living in a city where matches have been abandoned due to snow. Even more perversely, I have membership at Leicestershire, the most consistent of the English counties. Consistently bottom of the county championship, that is. Nevertheless, my cricket-watching visits to the Midlands are enriched by the gentle wit and wisdom of fellow aficionados scattered, albeit sparsely, around me.

For cricket-lovers the Ashes series has always been something special. Staying up into the wee small hours and promising our long-suffering spouses that “I’m only going to watch a few more overs”. When next they appear, we feign bleary-eyed surprise that it’s daylight outside.

Yet, off and on the pitch, something has gone wrong. It might be the rise of the so-called Barmy Army that has infected and afflicted England’s matches at home and abroad. Enjoyment of the current series has been diminished by the incessant, mindless chanting that intensifies as the day wears on. As the Army’s foot soldiers become worse for wear, so their loutish behaviour becomes progressively more wearing. It has been disheartening to hear commentators praise the “great English supporters”. Perhaps they mean grate. Little wonder more and more of us have taken to watching with the sound turned off.

Australian supporters are far from blameless. Indeed, some make Barry Humphries’ alter ego, Sir Les Patterson appear the epitome of urbanity. Nevertheless, the main culprits are easily recognised by their Engerland football tops, flags, tattoos and extended waistlines. Some of the males don’t look great either.

How have so many of the Barmy Army been able to make it out to Australia for weeks on end? No doubt some will have saved their cash and their holidays to make the trip of a lifetime. In that event, why do they spend so much time facing away from the pitch slopping lager over the unfortunates in their vicinity? I’ve also been surprised by the number of child soldiers conscripted into the Army. Can they all be attending their grannies’ funerals in Melbourne or Sydney?

Players’ on and off-field behaviour has taken a turn for the worse. Some didn’t even make it as far as the plane as a result of pre-tour naughtiness. Others received their return tickets due to japes during which drink had been taken. The current squad make Fred Trueman seem like a choirboy. Loutish behaviour on and off the pitch. Chicken or egg?

Of course, cricket is just the latest thing blighted by BAD or Brit Abroad Disease. Foreigners generally perceive the British as visitors from hell. Survey after survey tells the same story. The travel website Expedia ranked tourists from 24 countries according to five criteria. Who came last? You got it in one.

Some of Europe’s most beautiful cities have suffered disproportionately from BAD. Prague, Tallinn and Budapest have been ravaged by stag and hen parties disgorged from budget airlines. Sure, bar owners, taxi drivers and sex workers have done well, but the cities themselves are the losers. They have lost their individual character and much of their allure for those seeking more than cheap alcohol.

The small local bars and cafes have been replaced by genuine fake Irish pubs and international fast food outlets. When the stag and hen caravan moves on to more exotic and distant locations such as Thailand and Vietnam, what will remain for those cities?

One of the enduring conceits is that Britons are generally liked around the world. In truth foreigners’ perception is a compound of suspicion, pity and thinly veiled contempt. Who could blame the German newspaper Bild for identifying British people as the loudest, rudest and most drunken in Europe?

This behaviour is driven by an arrogant belief that our ways of doing things are superior to all others. Why should we learn Spanish, German or French? It’s up to them to learn English.

It was the toxic mix of conceit and arrogance that settled the EU referendum and has driven subsequent events. Political and economic arguments were marginal to the outcome. The decisive dog whistle was the lack of respect bordering on contempt for all things foreign. We were subsidising the EU to the tune of £350million per week. We were being swamped by immigrants taking our jobs and houses, scrounging off the welfare and the NHS.

Some good might yet emerge from the car crash that is Brexit. It might be “the giftie gie us to see oursels as ithers see us”. Perhaps a new sense of humility will emerge as we see how little we have to take back control of. Who knows, even on and off the cricket pitch, a phoenix might yet emerge from the ashes.