I didn't quite catch that...

If there’s only one (and, let’s face it, there may well be only one) thing to like about the North Korean state, it’s the floweriness of their propaganda language.

In the North’s version of events, a patrol boat was on a mission to confirm “an unidentified object” on the North’s side of the border, and while it was sailing back, South Korean ships chased it and opened fire in a “grave armed provocation”.

The North Korean vessel “lost no time to deal a prompt retaliatory blow at the provokers”, KCNA said. “Much flurried by this, the group of warships of the South Korean forces hastily took to flight to the waters of their side.”

I mean, they may well be the most confusing country on the planet; they may well be actual bonkers; they may well be starving their own people and building a bloody ugly hotel in the centre of Pyongyang; they may well be unknown to most of the world except as the baddies in Team America¹; but by God they know how to tell lies in a fancy way…

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¹ – Just a rittle ronery…