I forget the word, but there is a Russian word that sums this up. It’s about saying things thst are over-the-top to accentuate reality. In the same way that Stephen Colbert pretended to be a kind of hyper-Bill O’Reilly as a way of pointing out the ridiculousness and hypocrisy of some aspects of the Republicans in the US. It also applies to someone with a record of torturing and killing pets who is accused of murder, grinning and saying, “Everyone knows I would not hurt a fly.”

A couple of Russians saying that they found the wintry weather in the UK challenging? Well...