Prepare for odd news in a bleak week . . .

It hasn’t been a great week for positive, uplifting news to drown out the bleak variety. Between Covid, inflation, weather and climate concerns, crime, and the venting of spleen over the national rugby team, it’s been All Black all right.

When feel-good stories are scarce, the world of oddball takes and bizarre snippets has to lighten the load.

Take inflation. Kiwis would be the first to admit that quarterly inflation hitting a 32-year high is bad. The country’s 7.3 per cent rate is (gulp!) the worst since June 1990.

While New Zealand is at least doing better than the US and UK (9.1 and 9.4 per cent), our neighbours can still feel smug. Australia’s inflation for the three months to the end of June has yet to be reported, but was only 5.1 per cent to the end of March. Our inflation rate is the one Kiwi on the rise the Aussies wouldn’t be keen to claim.

A commentator on The Morning

When feel-good stories are scarce,

the world of oddball takes and

bizarre snippets has to lighten the

load.

Show in Australia said that New Zealand’s inflation is so bad some people here have been reduced to eating garden snails and using water spray instead of toilet paper.

Maybe an invitation to the next Wildfoods Festival to confirm suspicions about Kiwis’ widespread subsistence lifestyle is in order?

The war in Ukraine produced two bizarre moments. In an apparent battle of wills between two leaders, Turkey’s Recep

Tayyip Erdogan kept Russia’s Vladimir Putin waiting for 50 seconds in front of cameras for a meeting on Ukrainian grain exports. Putin is notorious for making leaders wait.

And US Deputy Attorneygeneral Lisa Monaco said a possible Faberge egg was found on a Russian oligarch’s boat — reportedly the US$300M yacht seized in Fiji, owned by Suleiman Kerimov. It must be the latest superyacht accessory.

Celebrity news was dominated by “Bennifer” finally getting hitched, years after Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez called off their engagement.

This, of course, spurred takes on what it meant for ordinary folks: Why it’s a good idea to rekindle an old romance; why you should never do so; how to handle it if you do; why she changed her last name and why people might want to.

All, at least, serving as escapist diversions from a difficult week.

— Herald on Sunday