News of Zealand: Cardboard Sexual Assault, Bogan Shopping, The Fake Moon Landing

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As office Christmas parties get into full swing, a heavy mix of festive cheer and underlying sexual tension between accounting and HR can account for some seriously drunken hijinks in an otherwise slow news season filled, in less reputable news outlets, with puff pieces about kleptomaniac kitties. An over-indulgence of Lindauer Fraise at the annual Chrissy bash was no doubt to blame for the antics of one Hamilton woman who, perhaps frustrated by a lack of success at her company mixer, decided to get it on with a cardboard cutout bloke in a supermarket. Bridge Street Countdown staff warned the culprit she’d, “better cut it out” before police were called in to drag the woman away from performing sexual acts on her 2-dimensional victim. During the subsequent arrest, police also confiscated a pocket-knife; potentially rescuing the non-consenting cutout from becoming New Zealand’s very own John Wayne Bobbitt.

In other criminal capers:

A ballsy Irishman was sentenced in Invercargill on assault charges after grappling with the meat and ‘taters of a police officer following a brawl in a Queenstown pub. Having roughhoused with punters and bouncers in a good ol’ fashioned, pool-cue snappin’ bar fight, the man took it up a notch when arrested, grabbing a sergeant by the plums and, “squeezing hard”. While the officer received no lasting damage to the family jewels, the Irish national was less lucky, receiving nine months in jail. At least there’ll be plenty of testicles.

South Auckland was the scene of a madcap Benny Hill sketch last week when a pesky window-washer on the run from the fuzz in a supermarket carpark hopped a fence only to discover he had jumped straight into the local cop-shop. Countdown shoppers reported hearing Yakety Sax blaring out of the carpark speaker system as they witnessed police pursuing the scalliwag at double-speed, prior to the comical yet largely predictable ending.

When a bank accidentally credited a Hasting man’s account with $340,000, Denys Douglas did what any bogan worth their salt would do: spent the money entirely on Holdens. After applying for a top-up to his mortgage, Douglas discovered his total balance had changed from -$170,000 in the red to $170,000 in credit. He celebrated his newly found loot with a visit to the local Commodore dealer, followed by another, and then another, filling his front yard with three brand new bogan chariots to complement the existing collection of rusted Kingswoods. Bank of New Zealand staff never questioned why the lost member of ZZ-Top was withdrawing tens of thousands in cash on the reg, until the man’s mortgage payments went into arrears and the bank actually noticed their mistake.

Elsewhere in the country:

After accidentally making a plausible attempt to re-enter the mobile market, Nokia New Zealand did their very best to send the Scandinavian company back into obscurity by firing out a giant “Fuck You” to their twenty or so Twitter followers.  The company retracted the tweet and offered an apology but no explanation for the explicit message. It remains unclear if it was the work of a hacker, a disgruntled employee, or that maybe like their phones, Nokia social media staff are just dumb as bricks.

Hot on the heels of the marathon efforts of last week’s Jandal Man, a Wellington chap’s ambitious plans to pedal across the Cook Strait on a water bike came unstuck when his support crew ditched him to go fishing and then “buggered off” back to shore to get fuel, leaving him to battle the straits heavy currents in the dark. Unable to find the man on their return, a police rescue search was called upon and the cyclist was eventually spotted by a helicopter. He was then picked up by a coast guard vessel who dished out a growling for his lack of preparation.  Despite his poor planning and rubbish mates, Rick Matenga remains adamant that with a few tweaks of his paddle bike he’ll ready to take another crack in a month’s time.  “Getting across was brilliant, there's nothing wrong with the bike. It's solid. The only thing wrong was the support crew.”

And finally this week Colin Craig, leader of the fringe Conservative Party with an actual legitimate chance of becoming minister of something important in the next Government, revealed he’s on the fence about whether or not man had landed on the moon. Following earlier comments on his website stating his party had, “no formal position on the existence of chemtrails” a Radio Live interviewer asked if he believed the moon landing was faked. Craig took the conversation up a notch when he responded, “I have no idea, mate. That's what we are told. I'm sort of inclined to believe it, but I haven’t had a chance to look into it yet.”  A party research spokesperson since announced they’d found a couple of, “really interesting looking sites on Google” which would serve as a good starting point for the investigation.

STORY OF THE WEEK:

This week’s crummiest crook award goes to a Waikato kindergarten teacher who was censured after being caught on CCTV pinching from kiddies' lunch boxes. Top work.

Follow Shane on Twitter: @doteyes

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