A law firm has mistakenly boasted that it is the new North Korean consulate.

The Edinburgh office of Scottish firm Gillespie Macandrew was actually designated as an honorary consulate for the Republic of Korea, otherwise known as South Korea. At a ceremony attended by SNP Leader Nicola Sturgeon, partner Derek McCulloch was also appointed honorary consul by the Republic's ambassador, His Excellency Sungnam Lim. A proud McCulloch said he would, "do all that I can to maintain and encourage good links between South Korea and Scotland". Unfortunately the firm's first move was to tweet this:


Though Scotland and the Hermit Kingdom do share a fondness for government purges and threatening their southern neighbours, McCulloch has not replaced photos of his family with portraits of the Supreme Leader. A spokeswoman for the UK embassy of the Republic of Korea told RollOnFriday, "It seems like Gillespie Macandrew had a confusion about the official name of South Korea", adding for the avoidance of nuclear winter, "The official name of South Korea is the Republic of Korea". 

A spokeswoman for Gillespie McAndrew said the firm had replaced its misleading tweet and given an apology to the Korean embassy which was "graciously accepted". RollOnFriday tried to ask the North Korean embassy if it would tolerate its ambassador being shunted to one side in favour of Nicola Sturgeon, but it was too busy executing terrapin farmers to respond.