England won the Ashes. In Australia. With a thumping, comprehensive, thoroughly deserved 3-1 series victory. With all three triumphs coming by massive innings margins.

It's worth repeating for, fittingly, three reasons: one, it's jolly fun to say; two, it is in danger of being temporarily forgotten in the immediate aftermath of a trouncing in a witless collection of meaningless, joyless ODIs; and three, an England Test series victory on this scale in this part of the world is essentially a once-in-a-lifetime event.

To find the last time England won the Ashes Down Under so convincingly against a full-strength Australian side you have to go back to Len Hutton's youthful victors of 1954/5. And even then it was Hutton's side that managed to lose by an innings while triumphing by the relatively close margins of 38 runs, 128 runs, and five wickets.

That team was packed with names that can be safely filed under 'Legends' or 'All-time Greats': Hutton himself, Cowdrey, Tyson and Statham, May, Edrich, Evans...

England's achievement this winter, then, is one that has never been equalled in most of our lifetimes and has certainly only been experienced once before by any Englishman too young to remember Bodyline, and has only been previously achieved by groups of players regarded among the finest the country has ever produced.

History will record it among England's finest ever tours once the transient ODIs are excised from the short-term memory by the next mind-sapping plethora of 50-over drearathons in the sub-continent.

Those wishing to belittle England's achievement will point to an unusually weak Australian side, and they will have a point.

This is the weakest Australian side for 20 years. But that is chiefly because Australian sides of the last 20 years have had a depressing tendency to be magnificent.

This Australia side had won five of six Tests in its previous domestic summer and pushed current world leaders India all the way in an all-too brief two-match 'series' in the run-up to the Ashes.

This batting line-up still contained Ponting, Clarke and Hussey - three men as responsible as any for the 5-0 green-and-goldwash of four years ago - in addition to the world's most bafflingly consistent ersatz opening batsman in Shane Watson.

What it lacked, though, was a consistent bowling attack.

Mitchell Johnson stumbled around Australia defining the word mercurial via the medium of left-arm over the wicket, while Peter Siddle showed on a couple of occasions that sheer will, aggression,
face-pulling and inexplicable facial hair can still sometimes be enough for an Australian quick against English foes.

Ryan Harris' bowling was, in truth, consistent enough, but so too was his deceitful body as it once again let him down.

Ben Hilfenhaus, so impressive in England 18 months ago, was exposed as a one-dimensional automaton, the swing-bowling equivalent of Monty Panesar.

Watson himself looked as likely as any Australian to take wickets consistently but, having found run-scoring more to his liking, has now adopted Kallisian levels of reluctance when it comes to the second of his all-round talents.

And so to the spinners. Australia tried almost every spin option available to them apart from their best one, with predictably disastrous results.

It was this bowling attack that allowed England's batsman to build the platform of their stunning triumph, first in Brisbane to save the opening match of the rubber and from then on to lay the foundations of crushing victories.

Alastair Cook astounded everyone, not least himself, by producing the sort of numbers all but impossible on the modern cricket tour. Over 700 runs in the Tests, and over 1000 in first-class cricket.

His was a singular triumph. His technique, dissected and dismissed by so many observers over the previous 12 months held firm, but more impressively so too did his body and mind.

At times, he exuded an almost impenetrable air of permanence at the crease to the extent that even a play and miss seemed at odds with the order of things.

As a feat of endurance, it was extraordinary, near super-human. Cook hardly sweats and seems never to tire. Factor in those eyes, and doubts about whether he truly is human or some suddenly freakishly successful Ash Machine experiment must be considered.

Jonathan Trott put paid to England's Problem Number Three position as he dug in - quite literally - for a series of patient, methodical, priceless innings. His gurning face did very nearly as much as Cook's smiling, choirboy one to sap Aussie confidence.

Others played their part when required, with Ian Bell frequently looking like England's best batsman despite rarely being required to do much other than apply the cherry atop an already enormous cake.

He finally made his first century in Ashes combat, and was quickly joined at the landmark by Matt Prior as England applied the coup de grace in Sydney.

Kevin Pietersen continued his love affair with the Adelaide Oval by plundering 227 in a manner that could only be KP, while Strauss' century in Brisbane was crucial to creating belief that the match could be saved from a seemingly hopeless position.

And as for Paul Collingwood, well, we love Paul Collingwood.

But if the batsman exceeded expectations, it was only by relatively slender margins. Against these opponents, most felt England would score sufficient runs to be competitive. But, we fretted, would the bowlers be able to take 20 wickets on flat Australian pitches?

Yes, it turned out, they would. Denied by Cook, Strauss and Trott the chance to even try in Brisbane, England's bowlers - with the odd handily timed and usually Watson-related run-out along the way - picked up all the remaining 80 Australian wickets.

Led magnificently by James Anderson - who, were this not so very much a batsman's game, would've shared the man-of-the-series honours with Cook - England's bowling attack kept Australia under near constant pressure.

Anderson's mastery of swing and it's many variations bamboozled all, but most notably Ponting, while Steven Finn burgled 14 wickets in three Tests before giving way to Tim Bresnan who promptly ripped the heart out of Australia's batting in Melbourne to provide another victory for England's near faultless planning and preparation.

The greatest success story of all, though, was perhaps Chris Tremlett. Binned after three promising Tests against India in 2007 for lacking the "right stuff" he returned for the back half of this series to terrorise Australia's batting in a way few Englishmen have.

His one-sided battles with poor Phil Hughes at points verged on the cruel and unusual.

So successful was England's seam attack in whichever combination it appeared, that Graeme Swann - seen as the key to English hopes at the series outset - was needed chiefly in a supporting role.

That was perhaps the biggest surprise of all in a series full of them.

England's victory will take time to sink in, for the full scale of the achievement to be appreciated.

When it does, it will rightly take its place among England's greatest Ashes success stories.