Turns out the smiling handshakes at the historic meeting between North and South Korea on the peninsula they occupy weren’t the biggest part of the story.
No, the real revelation is that North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has a toilet car that follows him everywhere he goes when outside Pyongyang.
It sounds too absurd to be true, but it is. If you go back through footage of the North Korean convoy of official Mercedes-Benz arriving at the historic summit in the border village of Panmunjon, one of them (identical to the rest) is a high-tech port-a-loo on wheels.
The Washington Post gave us all an insight into the dictatorial ablutions, revealing — through a recent defector from the country — that whenever Kim Jong Un is required to travel around the country by car, his mobile toilet is never far behind.
Not a big fan of broadening the mind with foreign travel, the feisty leader of the hermit kingdom doesn’t like to fly and generally uses a private train to travel around North Korea.
The availability of bathrooms aboard the choo-choo aren’t an issue, but as soon as he is required to leave the tracks and set off in an official car somewhere, special ... er, arrangements need to be made.
Coupled with the breaking bathroom news was the revelation that Kim Jong Un is a Mercedes-Benz fan, as evidenced by the motorcade he arrived in for the summit.
This is a departure from his father’s preference though; anti-capitalist, American-hating predecessor Kim Jong Il always used ... Lincolns.
Whether he too had an automotive outhouse remains unclear, however.
Ford says ‘See ya later’ to the humble sedan
Well, it’s probably not all that much of a surprise, is it? But yes, with news of the cancellation of the next iteration of Ford Fusion, FoMoCo has deleted the last three-box sedan from its domestic US line-up.
It’s another sure sign that the family sedan is all but dead in the water as new car buyers stumble over themselves to purchase compact crossovers and SUVs.
Of course, with the death of the Aussie-built Falcon a couple of years back, fans of the Blue Oval here in New Zealand haven’t been able to buy a sedan for a while; the next best thing being the Mondeo liftback that sorta-kinda-if-you-squint looks like a sedan.
Not that it matters for Ford’s Kiwi outpost; all anyone wants here is a Ranger or a Mustang. Sedans haven’t been a factor for years.
It’s an interesting move on the whole, however, as according to the New York Times, Ford still sold 209,000 Fusion sedans in the US last year. That’s a couple hundred thousand people who obviously still like themselves a sedan.
It’s also more than double the number of Ford Mustangs sold there last year, although the dip in sales for that model could possibly be explained away as a fanbase sitting on their hands while awaiting the revised 2018 version of the populist Pony Car to arrive.
Still, what’s Ford doing? Probably just following the leader, especially where Detroit is concerned. GM and Fiat Chrysler have become as averse to big sedans as the French have been for the past decade.
Japanese and Korean manufacturers are also pushing sedans to the margins or changing the ones they still have to exhibit a sleeker silhouette.
Only Toyota appears to remain in a celebratory mood when it comes to the sedan; its latest Camry has just been unveiled here with the usual bluster about it being sportier than ever.
That leaves ze Chermins. And BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi all love them a big, broad, autobahn-eating sedan. It’s Jaguar’s stock-in-trade in the UK, too.
Well, apart from all those SUVs it’s also keen to sell these days too of course ... A Ford sedan of a certain specification, whether it be a Falcon or a Cortina or — going back further still — an Anglia, was a sign you’d done rather well in life.
A Ford Escape SUV with all the options ticked just doesn’t carry with it the same mana.
More than 4000 Lego bricks can’t be wrong
Okay, this isn’t related to the world of motoring, but here at The Good Oil, we can’t ignore a good Lego story when it passes across our desk.
The Danish toy company has just released a gigantic new set; the Lego Creator Expert Roller Coaster (the name has us questioning what an “inexpert” roller coaster is) and if unboxing freshly-minted Lego bricks is your thing, then this baby features more than 4000 of them. Mmm, smell the plastic.
It’s still no 7541-piece Millennium Falcon and is a few hundred bricks shy of the 4600-plus Ghostbusters Firehouse set released a wee while ago. But with a footprint of 41cm x 88cm and standing at 53cm high, the Lego coaster is no shrinking violet.
As well as the track, there are a handful of minifigures and other sets-within-the-set to build, such as a concession stand, ticket kiosk and icecream seller.
And just like those other sets, the similarity is the eye-watering price tag. It’ll cost nearly a thousand bucks. But what price endless happiness?
Well, until someone knocks it over four minutes after you realise you’ve lost the assembly instruction booklet, anyway ...