As oddities go, this one is a pretty good one. It seems that over in North Korea – a country which you generally only hear about on the news if they’re testing missiles or ‘waging war’ against the Western World – they’re getting in a lather about a new ad for lager. Over here of course this would be no big deal, but in a country like North Korea, where advertising, never mind TV advertising, is rare, this is really something to get excited about. If you’re not planning a trip to Pyongyang any time soon however, you can see the ad on the BBC News website – and ti certainly makes for intriguing viewing. I’ve always had a soft spot for the sheer lunacy and energy of Japanese advertising, but this is something else entirely.

Played out over a bizarre soundtrack that sounds like something composed on a Bontempi keyboard in around 1985 with a few Far East sounding twiddles thrown in, the ad – for the apparently popular Taeddonggang beer, takes you through what seems to be the entire process of making, dispatching, pouring, serving and of course drinking the beer – which is dished up to a group of men in Western style suits by female waitresses in traditional Korean dress. The beverage is dubbed the ‘Pride of Pyongyang’ and viewers are told that drinking it will help ease stress.

So how did this particular product manage to get itself advertised when it’s still such a rarity in North Korea? Well the fact that Kim Jong-Il himself is a fan of the brew might actually have helped a little – he normally favours fine wines and brandy but the Dear Leader was said to be impressed after a visit to the brewery in 2002. To be honest the ad is a tad tedious – it runs for over two and a half minutes and feels only marginally longer than the director’s cut of Titanic – but for historic reasons alone it’s worth a look.