The oddest news RNZ covered in 2023

Recap: - The news in 2023 was dominated by a one in 200-year flood, a one in 50-year cyclone and a one in three-year election.

But also making headlines were things that made us laugh and ask for more, not cry and beg the gods for mercy.

Here's some of the oddest news RNZ covered during a year in which New Zealand had three prime ministers, two of them named 'Chris'.

Clowning critters

We'll start with animals, since they're much rather unlikely to complain to the Media Council about being the subject of mockery.

The big story of the year was of course British comedian John Oliver's interference in the Bird of the Century competition - the most important of New Zealand's two major elections this year making global headlines as a result, and organisers Forest & Bird reaping the financial benefits.

They weren't on the ballot, but arguably the trophy should have gone to the pigeons that dumped "over half a tonne" of poo on the Ashburton Event Centre in March.

In December, a University of Otago zoologist found a bird that was literally half male and half female - literally split down the middle.

Wellington's home of cricket the Basin Reserve has seen its share of ducks over the years, but in July it became home to an actual duck, curiously named Sophie Devine (for comedic reasons, we're going to pretend that's why it settled there, not the other way around).

In non-avian animal news, in December a Napier woman was dragged in front of the council to explain why her dogs wouldn't shut up, and got laughed at when she tried to claim her neighbours simply didn't like her, or the podcasts she listened to while gardening.

And earlier that month a three-hour search and rescue operation was launched near Westport, but it turned out the 'distress calls' were just bleating loud goats.

Food follies

Just like news on the RNZ website, food is something we need to consume several times a day in order to live.

But scientists sure are doing their best to make it as unattractive a prospect as possible. Researchers in Canterbury in September revealed that instead of making Jazz apples cost $3 a kilo year-round and lettuce that tastes like corn chips, they were inventing "balls of fruity deliciousness". And they looked like this.

It's enough to almost make you instead want to eat a planet, like some kind of dying 10 billion-year-old star in the constellation Aquila.

Or a bacon (yay!) and seaweed (...oh) pie.

Not even a nuclear winter would save Kiwis from having to eat this stuff, a study published in the New Zealand Medical Journal in April found.

Awesome Australians

Australians, not content with just boosting New Zealand's population, are now getting pregnant twice at the same time.

It seems anything goes when it comes to having babies across the ditch as an ABC journalist also found out when she accidentally registered her newborn's name as 'Methamphetamine Rules'.

If there was one good thing Australia did this year, it was quite possibly crowning a Kiwi couple instead of Charles and Camilla.

Aotearoa, auē…

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a website with the letters 'NZ' in its name, RNZ covered a lot of New Zealand news in 2023. Not all of it was bound to make sense.

But the word 'chur' presumably does now, having made its way into the Oxford Dictionary.

It's a miracle we heard about it though, with NZ Post quietly closing services to a quarter of the world without anyone really noticing.

Otago

Let's start with this cracker of a headline from October, which simply read: 'Otago students 'bite legs off ducks', suck up own vomit and hold live eel in flat hazing rituals'. (Not sure you really need to read more, but click on that link anyway, it's good for our stats.)

In July, a retired Kiwi academic was shocked to discover his book, about a horse journey he took in 1974, was featured in the hit film Barbie.

Taranaki

New Plymouth in September did perhaps the most New Plymouth thing it could and held the national mullet finals - there was even a child's division, which should perhaps raise eyebrows at Oranga Tamariki.

New Plymouth also made headlines in August when it adopted a troublemaking pig from Auckland dubbed 'Kevin Bacon' and renamed 'Reggie' by its new vegan owners.

The city's police lifted the lid on perhaps the year's oddest crime in November - someone stole a public toilet cistern and replaced it with a golden replica. A month later, the culprit was yet to be flushed out.

And still in New Plymouth (what was going on there in 2023?!), a 79-year-old woman was stunned to find out she was actually 123 - at least according to the IRD.

New Plymouth (!!!) Councillor Murray Chong in December railed against cycle lanes because they might ruin his sports car.

Auckland

It was revealed in November that Auckland War Memorial Museum's volcano exhibit tells visitors Whakaari/White Island is still open for tourism.

In May, "one of the country's most iconic streets" Karangahape Rd got its own fragrance (for the avoidance of doubt, we mean a bottled perfume).

In December, a crook in the city's west picked the wrong moment to try and steal a TV - fleeing right past an ex-sprinter.

But if doing meth is a crime (editor's note: it is), everyone in downtown Auckland in April was arguably breaking the law - methamphetamine being found literally hanging in the air. But hey, at least it wasn't turning into electricity.

And have you ever seen a man so happy to have 11,000 of anything, let alone eggcups?

Canterbury

A Christchurch man who waited until now to rebuild his quake-hit house in August revealed he had installed a cricket wicket in the attic, meanwhile across town the university hosted a public lecture on "bullsh**ology".

The city's beer festival in January was almost cancelled when, somewhat ironically considering the abundance of it in the atmosphere, there was a shortage of carbon dioxide.

A chicken sandwich purchased at Christchurch Airport almost cost a local woman $3300 in fines when she landed in Brisbane, still having not eaten the sandwich.

Wellington

British pop singer Ed Sheeran, a man in his 30s with dozens of top 10 hits to his name, was asked for ID at a Wellington bar in January - by a woman who called herself a superfan.

Beehive buffoonery

Did you know there was also an election for people this year? Crazy, right?

During the campaign, National MP and self-described former bully Sam Uffindell revealed he did the shopping once a month to "give my wife a break".

He wasn't the only MP to offer up a cringeworthy quip about relationships, his boss Christopher Luxon in June calling on "all of you to go out there, have more babies if you wish, that would be helpful".

Meanwhile his future coalition partner, David Seymour of ACT, in September told an RNZ host her "breasts are extremely large" and he usually preferred "smaller ones". For fairness and balance it unfortunately has to be noted they were cooking chicken at the time.

The second-most unexpected foreign meddling in a New Zealand election this year came from the grandson of Nelson Mandela, who disputed Seymour's claim the South African hero would have voted ACT. Not even the party's founder Roger Douglas, he of Rogernomics fame, would admit to voting ACT this year.

One would-be National candidate didn't even get to run after his own children correctly predicted he would get cancelled before the campaign even began.

The left had its fair share of shenanigans in 2023 too. Considering their election result, it's weird to think back in January two towns were feuding to claim then-new Prime Minister Chris Hipkins as their own, whilst the man himself was going out in public wearing Dirty Dogs and a black hoodie.

The poor guy also couldn't go anywhere - not even Buckingham Palace or 10 Downing St - without being force-fed sausage rolls.

The Greens couldn't avoid the chaos either - one of them calling another a 'crybaby' in a group chat, their colleagues' shocked reactions caught live on Parliament TV.

Oh, almost forgot - former National Party whip Jami-Lee Ross is now apparently a pimp.