Take inflation. Kiwis would be the first to admit that quarterly inflation hitting a 32-year high both looks and is bad. The country's 7.3 per cent rate is (gulp!) the worst since June 1990.
While New Zealand is at least doing better than the US and UK (9.1 and 9.4 per cent), our neighbours across the ditch can still feel smug. Australia's inflation rate for the three months to the end of June has yet to be reported, but it was only 5.1 per cent to the end of March.
Our inflation rate is the one Kiwi on the rise the Aussies wouldn't be keen to claim.
A commentator on The Morning Show in Australia said that New Zealand's inflation is so bad, some people here have been reduced to eating garden snails and using water spray instead of toilet paper.
Maybe an invitation to the next Wildfoods Festival to confirm suspicions about Kiwis' widespread subsistence lifestyle, while nibbling a huhu grub, is in order?
The war in Ukraine also produced two bizarre moments last week.
In an apparent battle of wills between two leaders, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan kept Russia's President Vladimir Putin waiting for 50 seconds in front of cameras for a meeting on Ukrainian grain exports. Putin is notorious for making leaders wait.
Meanwhile, the US Deputy Attorney-General Lisa Monaco said that a possible Fabergé egg was found on a Russian oligarch's boat - reportedly the US$300 million sanctioned yacht seized in Fiji, owned by Suleiman Kerimov. It must be the latest superyacht accessory.
Celebrity news was dominated by 'Bennifer' finally getting hitched, years after Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez called off their engagement.
This, of course, spurred takes on what it meant for ordinary folks: Why it's a good idea to rekindle an old romance; why you should never do so; how to handle it if you do; why on earth she changed her last name and why people might want to.
All, at least, serving as escapist diversions from a difficult week.
