According to my expert on these matters, the surname of playwright Roland Schimmelpfennig (whose The Woman Before is opening at the Queensland Theatre Company's Bille Brown Studio tomorrow night) is unusual even by German standards. It means "mouldy penny".

There's an old saying in journalism that Dog bites man is not a news story, but Man bites dog is. In China, I guess Man bites panda is the equivalent. The story goes that Zhang Xinyan drank four jugs of beer, went to the zoo and decided he wanted to touch a panda. The panda, GuGu, was startled and bit Zhang, who bit the panda back. They then got into a tussle that didn't end well for Zhang. "No one ever said they would bite people," Zhang said from his hospital bed. "I just wanted to touch it. I was so dizzy from the beer. I don't remember much."

For the best part of a month, Campbell St, Bowen Hills, has been closed on both sides of the railway crossing. This is a permanent closure, and there are fences and barricades in place to stop traffic. But that hasn't stopped the lights flashing and the boom gates going down each time a train comes along. If I lived near a level crossing that didn't have boom gates, I'd be rather angry about that.