Just imagine it. The best part of half the stadium's capacity may have cause to stop by in the coming week, and what will they be able to buy? There's not a souvenir shirt in sight. Instead, it's a choice of sweets and snacks; a Domino's Pizza; a change of clothes at the handily-situated Laundromat, and err ... a selection of porn and sex toys from the Gabba's very-own Adultworld. Brilliant. Either it's everything an Australian sports fan could possibly need, in a quick and convenient one-stop shop, or it's a sign that the Gabba has outgrown its surroundings in record time. Maybe it's both ...

Just up the road there is a no-less puzzling sight. The Brisbane German Club or "Deutscher Turn Verein", a white colonial town-hall of a building that provides its members with a bar, plus all the folk dancing, card games, skittles and mixed choirs an ex-pat could possibly need. An intriguing sign on the door says that "bone fide" visitors are welcome, which presumably must include those renowned Germanophiles, the Barmy Army. After a 10,000-mile trip, you could hardly refuse them a quick game of kegeln, could you?

Talking of the Barmy Army, their sightings have so far been limited, although the bars in Queen's Street, the city's central shopping spot, have already prostrated themselves to the invaders. St George's Crosses flutter from every table beneath banners proclaiming "We Are England ... The Mighty Mighty England", in tribute to that dreadful dirge of a signature tune. Once again, there's no denying it. Everyone loves England's cricket fans. Even, it seems, the Germans.

Aside from the verbal sparring, the build-up to Brisbane has been pretty low-key so far, and the news that Australia's favourite son, the Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe, has dramatically announced his retirement will ensure an unexpected downturn in cricket's column inches tomorrow. ("Thorpe quits on eve of Ashes" - where have we heard that before?)

The host broadcasters, however, are clearly bracing themselves for an upturn in excitement. For a good 20 minutes during Australia's afternoon practice session, the Channel 9 soundchecker could be heard booming out from down the corridor: "1 ... 2 ... Yeaaaahh!", a mantra that could have become laptop-flingingly irritating if it hadn't been so essential. After all, when you've got Bill and Tony in the hot-seat for the first morning of the Ashes, it's prudent to have your decibel levels finely tuned.