For every story that slaps the world in the face – and in 2014 they included the Ebola outbreak, the ISIL plague, and planes falling out of the sky – there's a yarn about a cat that walked a thousand miles to find its owner. Or a piece of globe-trotting gossip about some ordinary sad sack who has made a mess of his life in such a spectacular or oddball way as to be elevated to colosseum-style comedy.
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In October, when the director of the US Secret Service was forced to resign after a series of security breaches – and Australia was enjoying a total lunar eclipse – a story was being handballed from one news outlet to the another about a Spanish bride who became pregnant on her hen's night after sleeping with a dwarf stripper.
Those involved weren't named, but the story apparently broke after the baby was born with dwarfism and the groom persisted in asking awkward questions. The fallout can only be guessed at – did the couple stick together or come violently apart? – but the story keeps turning up on news websites as a recommended read.
(When The Telegraph in the UK ran the story, it's linked to other quirky dwarf stories – notably a yarn about a Welsh dwarf actor who took his normal-sized fiancee to dinner and was given a colouring-in book and a packet of crayons, when the waitress mistook him for a child. Perhaps they were, um, running short on news that day.)
It's not only brides that lose the plot under the influence. In February, Adelaide man Jacob Brookes was arrested at the altar after being allegedly so drunk that the church minister refused to conduct the service. A brawl ensued and Mr Brooks was later said to have suffered torn clothes, bruising and a broken bone – by which time he'd been charged with disorderly conduct.
Mr Brooks might find some consolation in the story of Pennsylvania groom Mark Williams who was arrested at his own wedding reception after getting "handsy" with a waitress, and trying to pour shots of vodka down her throat. The groom's brother, an off-duty state trooper, was arrested and charged with assaulting two policeman who responding to a call for help. All of which makes you wonder who ended up populating the Christmas dinner table this year.
Four weeks ago, as pro-democracy protesters were clashing with Hong Kong police, and the Pope was releasing doves of peace in Istanbul, three gay escorts in South Carolina were sitting in a hot tub and about to become click-bait news oddities. The trouble began when Douglas Tench, 21, boasted that he earned bigger fees than the others. Austin Adams, 18, responded with a flurry of kicks and punches. It escalated from until police were called, mug-shots were taken – and eventually published at the Huffington Post, New York Daily News and beyond.
A week before the hot tub hullabaloo, passengers on a US domestic flight were assaulted by the stench of pig droppings. A woman had brought her pig on to the plane as a "support animal" – a practice allowed in the United States for people who have mental health issues. But the relationship between woman and sow soured after the pig defecated in the aisle and began squealing unhappily as the women tried tying it to an armrest. The woman then started calling the pig a "jerk." Eventually everyone was ordered off, the plane was cleaned – and the woman and pig were forced to find alternative transport.
The first week in December was in fact a big week for small news. In a poignant twist of the "cat walks a long way home" classic, a Birmingham policewoman drove 500 miles to her home town in Scotland to bury her dead cat. When the cat was run over, the policewoman put her in the freezer, until she had the opportunity to make the trip to Cullen, where the pet cemetery has a particularly beautiful view of the sea.
