North Korea never ceases to surprise. Predictably unpredictable, you might say.

But a change of voice? Towards the South? That was the last thing I was expecting right now.

Yet lo and behold, Pyongyang has sent Seoul a message which is polite. Kind of.

Its content is negative. Kim Jong Un has declined Moon Jae-in’s invitation to his upcoming summit with ASEAN leaders in Busan. Well, there’s a surprise. Not.

Did anyone seriously suppose Kim would accept? Even the Blue House, still desperately clinging to its delusion that the peninsula’s peace processes are not dead in the water, surely never