Man Bites Panda

"If a dog bites a man then that's not a story...but if a man bites a dog...THAT'S A STORY"

The course director at our journalism school was seldom happier than when trotting out this dog-eared piece of journalistic wisdom...which might explain why journalists would have been barking mad not to pick up the dog-and-bone and follow up this lead, erm, story:

Man bites panda after zoo attack

A drunken Chinese tourist says he bit a panda who attacked him after he jumped into a zoo enclosure to "hug" the bear. Zhang Xinyan, 35, had drunk four draught beers before deciding to enter the Beijing Zoo pen belonging to six-year-old male panda Gu Gu.

The startled Gu Gu bit both legs of his intruder, who responded by biting the panda on its back", Mr Zhang was quoted by state media as saying. Mr Zhang said he had not realised pandas could be violent.

More here.