Kim and friends

I was sat in the foyer of Albion's training ground when I started to get a little bit paranoid.

Giggles from two rather senior members of Albion's backroom staff.

Perhaps I'd walked under a seagull. Were my flies undone? No.

Did I have odd shoes on. No. But we're getting closer.

And then I saw it.

A bright pink blazer jacket, khaki trousers, bright green shoes, a Paisley patterned cardigan and Harry Potter style glasses. Sobering it wasn't.

Welcome to the unveiling of Albion's latest signing. Also present was his interpreter, who had clearly woken up to find a power cut and picked up what he could from the back of the wardrobe.

Do-heon Kim - the correct and only way to write his name - was presented before a handful of English press and several more TV crews from Korea.

It was surrealism at its best.

Our colourfully-dressed friend had been drafted in as Kim's ears and mouth, although there was no need for him to apologise for his short-lived knowledge of English - we were hardly likely to heckle back in Korean.

Questions were asked, answers were translated and we found out a little more about the Baggies' newest player, his ambitions, his views of England and how Albion will be perceived in downtown Seoul.

Mind you not all went swimmingly. One of Kim's answers, from a question asked by me as it happens, drew guffaws from the Korean press.

Naturally I joined in - laughing out loud and nudging my colleague just to show I was in on the gag as if I'd suddenly developed a grasp of colloquial Korean. Again, I checked my shoes, just to be sure.

And then a female journalist asked a question about Kim's wife - the interpreter mistakenly thinking she was asking whether Kim was single or not...

Let's not even go there.

It was that kind of press conference.

Kim, welcome to England.