In the early hours of Friday morning here in Seoul I found myself struggling to stay awake as two former bastions of socialism, Germany and Poland, toiled their way to a drab and eventless draw in the European Championships in France. I was almost ready to throw in the Parisian towel when, on the screen next to me, notifications came flooding in reporting the death of Kim Jong Un.

Scrolling through the usual hyperbole and forcing myself to remain calm – sitting approximately 100 miles from Pyongyang and therefore well within striking distance – it soon became clear that the reports were, indeed, false. The Marshal was not dead and no female suicide bomber had taken his life in anger.