Throughout the year, some events provide a bit of respite from the
daily grind and remind us that human nature and failings are
qualities shared worldwide.
Here is a lighthearted selection from AFP's "offbeat" stories for
2013:
-- A tired German bank employee dozed off on his keyboard and
accidentally transformed a minor transfer into one of 222 million
euros ($293 million), a court heard in June.
The Hessen court was told that the man was going to transfer just
62.40 euros from a pensioner's bank account, but "fell asleep for
an instant, while pushing onto the number 2 key on the keyboard" --
upgrading it to a 222,222,222.22 euro operation.
The bank quickly discovered the mistake and corrected the
beneficiary's brief windfall.
-- A terrified New Zealand burglar handed himself in after breaking
into a darkened house in June and bumping into a hanging corpse,
waking neighbours with his blood-curdling screams, police said.
The would-be thief was arrested when he called police in the early
hours to report his gruesome encounter in the North Island town of
Hamilton, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Inspector Greg Nicholls said it was the most unusual case he had
seen in his 28-year career, and felt it would prompt the burglar to
mend his ways.
-- A wealthy Chinese Maserati owner hired four
sledgehammer-wielding men to smash his $420,000 (307,470-euro)
supercar in protest at poor customer service, a newspaper said in
May.
The car owner, identified only by his surname Wang, had the quartet
attack his Maserati Quattroporte at an auto show in the eastern
city of Qingdao in Shandong province, the Qingdao Morning Post
reported.
Video images showed the men performing their task with gusto,
leaving the vehicle with a shattered windscreen and mirrors, the
grille broken and dents to the bodywork.
-- A German groom got off to a bad start in October after he drove
for two hours down the motorway before realising he had left his
new bride at a petrol station.
The hapless husband took off from a highway stop while, unbeknown
to him, his wife had gone to the bathroom.
He only noticed his mistake 200 kilometres (125 miles) down the
road, because he thought she was sleeping in the back of their
camping van.
"My first reaction was: is he stupid?" the 33-year-old bride
recalled on private radio station FFH.
-- Fed up with people ridiculing its name, Bland Shire in Australia
wants to cash in on it by hooking up with Dull in Scotland and the
American town of Boring.
Long considered a dreary destination due to its name, Bland's
tourism committee mulled promoting the area in May by establishing
sister relationships with similar towns.
Dull and Boring have already joined forces to draw in tourists.
-- Thieves turned the notion of jailbreak on its head when they
broke into a northern Italian prison to steal a safe in
September.
The robbers used underground passages that have no CCTV cameras to
reach the prison director's office and make off with around 5,000
euros ($6,700), the Corriere della Sera newspaper said.
The money had been left there for safekeeping for prisoners by
their families.