Prompted by the post on the North Korean MiGs, a number of readers have written in with reminders of an incident that occurred during the crisis over the USS Pueblo. Apparently the American sailors detained by the North Koreans quickly discovered that their captors did not know the meaning of ‘the finger’. Naturally they made full use of the gesture, explaining to their guards that it was a “Hawaiian good luck sign”. It was only when photographs of them doing that reached America that Pyongyang found out the truth and responded, needless to say, with the usual brutality.