Pom bashing is a favourite sport of your average Aussie and now pop princess Kylie Minogue is joining in.

Mocking our cricket teams, warm lager and weather is a national sport Down Under.

But the pint-sized stunner added another target to the list when she weighed in with a broadside at the pebbles on Brighton beach.

Kylie was sat on a fake beach in London promoting a British Airways initiative to encourage people to take long-haul holidays to tropical paradises when she said there were too many pebbles on the city's coast to stage the photo shoot there.

She was then asked what was wrong with English beaches as a holiday destination and is reported to have said: "Oh come on, I've been to Brighton. Have you seen that place? I mean, the city itself is nice but the beach is full of rocks and pebbles! Not something I'm used to back home, I must say."

Her comments have offended a few locals but fellow Antipodeans living in Brighton and Hove have backed her all the way.

Mark Rutter, 20, from Perth, who is working at Brighton's Walkabout bar, said: "Perth is absolutely beautiful. The ocean is blue instead of brown and there is white sand instead of pebbles.

"There is surfing here in Torquay but nothing like there is in Australia.

"There are dolphins in the water close to the shore. A couple of times I have been out, seen a fin and the dolphins have swum alongside."

But he confessed he did not know the coastline near Kylie's home city of Melbourne.

His colleague Alice Germano, 22, does hail from the Victoria capital, which itself has a Brighton Beach, although it is not right on the doorstep for city dwellers.

She revealed: "It's nothing like the beach here - it's sandy.

"Further west there's the Grand Ocean Road, where you would go for surfing. It's about two hours' drive each way to get to the surfing beaches but well worth it."

Despite the flak Brighton does, of course, have a lot to offer tourists - from The Lanes, the Royal Pavilion and the Palace Pier to more recent landmarks.

One such addition is the painting of Kylie in the Art Asylum gallery window in Kemp Town.

Artist Simon Etheridge hoped one day it would hang above the pop star's mantlepiece but it has now been sold so will not be on show for much longer.

Brighton's pebbled beach is itself a cause for celebration.

Adam Bates, head of tourism at the city council, said: "As well as the pebbles, we have a couple of hundred tonnes of sand this weekend for the Kronenbourg Cup football tournament.

"It is being admired by the players from France and Portugal - they clearly think our beach is fantastic."

City council leader Ken Bodfish added: "We may not be Bondi but we have other attractions - not least the fact Kylie lives in this country rather than over there."

However, a spokeswoman for Kylie's label EMI said the issue is a mountain out of a sandcastle.

She said: "Kylie was asked whether it was strange being on a beach in the middle of London. She said the nearest beach was probably Brighton but there were lots of pebbles so she couldn't do the shoot there. It was not meant as anything bad about Brighton."