Every year has its fair share of the peculiar news stories. From the spooky to the mysterious, to the amusing to the downright bizarre, they are usually broadcast in local newsrooms all over the globe unless it is of particular note to make national or international news. Here is a selection of the most bizarre news stories of 2012 from around the globe.

1. They Say That Government Workers do Nothing’¦

And for one German Civil Servant, this was quite literally true. Upon retirement, an unnamed employee of local German government had stated he had done no actual work for the past fourteen years. This was because another man had been employed in the role (a role that had enough work for one person but not two) and he was left with nothing to do. He started the job in 1974 and after 1998 when the second man was employed he continued to collect pay until his retirement having not done a day’s work.

2. Honey: Set, Clear and’¦ Blue?

Most honey lovers expect their sweetener of choice to come in a small variety of colours. Though mostly yellow with a few exceptions (heather honey is almost a pale green and orange blossom honey does have a slight orange tint). Some such as smoked oak can be dark brown. But who has ever heard of blue, red or vibrant green? These colours left the residents of one French town scratching their heads. However, it was eventually discovered that their local bees had developed a taste for waste from a confectionary factory and were incorporating it into their honey production.

3. That’s Now How Rewards Work

Seeing that there was a $100 reward for information leading to the arrest of a man named Mohammed Ashan for attacks on Afghan Security Services in Afghanistan, Ashan didn’t quite get the point of a reward for his arrest. He decided to turn himself in, believing that he would be rewarded for this information. He was promptly arrested and did not receive the reward much to his indignation.

4. Does This Suspicious Man Look Like Me By Any Chance?

A Police Officer in Sussex, England was pursuing a man after being called by a CCTV Operative who alerted the plain clothes Constable to a suspicious looking individual. The Officer pursued the directions for almost half an hour and could not understand why he always seemed to be close but never able to apprehend the subject. That was until it slowly dawned on the CCTV Operator that it was the plain clothes Officer himself.

5. Boris Johnson Job on the Line

2012 is best known for being the year of the successful London Olympics with its high production opening ceremony that wowed the world in the summer. London Mayor Boris Johnson took every opportunity to praise the city and to promote it on the world stage (not that London needs much of that!) but one of his stunts during the games left him a little red-faced when he got stuck on a zip wire at Victoria Park. Johnson took it all in good humour, asking spectators to fetch him a ladder.

6. We Have More Squirrels Than Before

A typhoon near a zoo in Tokyo led to the destruction of the squirrel habitat. It was estimated that thirty had escaped but bizarrely, thirty eight were later recaptured. In case they had underestimated the quantity that escaped, the zookeepers kept hold of all animals until they were able to determine which was theirs and whether the remainder were wild or were the result of breeding following the escape.

7. What Have You Done to My Jesus?!

Perhaps the biggest bizarre news story of the last year was of the restoration of an icon that went horribly wrong. A church in Zaragoza, Spain is home to a well-known icon of Christ dating to the 19th century. It was scheduled for renovation when one of the parishioners decided to take it upon herself to save the church the money and effort. The problem is she was not a master artist or an expert at restoration. Descriptions of her handiwork were not kind with one commentator stating it looked like ‘something from Planet of the Apes’.

8. An Essential Foodstuff for the Apocalypse

Marmite is either something you can’t do without or something that only passes your lips once in your life ‘ it’s a love it or hate it foodstuff and the manufacturer has been playing on this as a marketing tool for years. So imagine the civil unrest that might have resulted from consumers panic-buying the product in New Zealand. But why? Did it have newly discovered health properties? No, the New Zealand factory was destroyed during the earthquake leading to a shortage of marmite and fans frantically buying up stock.

9. Facebook as an Excuse for Jury Duty

Jacob Jock of Florida, USA wasn’t keen on his call-up for jury duty in his home state. Jock used one of the more imaginative ways of getting out of it though, he friend requested the suspect in the case he was supposed to be jurying on. Believing this would get him off on the grounds that he was familiar with the defendant the court did not take lightly to this brash attempt to evade his civic duty and jailed him for three days. The fact that he bragged about this dismissal on the social network probably did nothing for his case.

10. Kermit’s Littlest Brother

2012 saw the discovery of the world’s smallest frog. Measuring in at a minuscule 7.7 millimetres, this story from January stunned the scientific world for its sheer lack of size and is now recognised as the world’s smallest vertebrate. The previous recorded smallest creature with a backbone was an eight millimetre long fish from Asia. The frog was found in Florida and it is currently being studied by researchers.

Conclusion

This is just a small collection of some of the weirdest news stories from around the world but there are many more, some famous and some not so famous that made 2012 just as amusing, bizarre and downright hilarious as ever. Most news sites have a collection of their own.