His calm demeanour and wholesome vocation have apparently endeared him to one of the most authoritarian regimes in the world. But there is something about Alan Titchmarsh that North Korea’s censors can’t quite forgive – his jeans.
The green-fingered broadcaster and author of raunchy novels has been a fixture on state television since 2022, albeit with the addition of a blurred effect from the waist down.
By wearing jeans to potter about in Britain’s gardens in his BBC TV series Garden Secrets, Titchmarsh, 74, fell foul of a North Korean ban on the garments, which the regime has forbidden since the early 1990s because they are seen as a symbol of US imperialism.
You must log in or register to comment.
According to NK the jeans are a sign of American imperialism. On a British Gardner. Maybe if it was stars and stripes maybe, but simple blue denim offending the Great Leader is just funny.
Not the Onion.
“Our people are now buying your blue jeans and listening to your pop music. I fear the rest of the world will also succumb to the influence of your culture.”
NPC line from the game Civilization 5.
It’s about time!
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The green-fingered broadcaster and author of raunchy novels has been a fixture on state television since 2022, albeit with the addition of a blurred effect from the waist down.
In an episode aired on Monday and set in the gardens of the 17th-century Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, Titchmarsh can be seen kneeling in soil, the sleeves of his checked shirt rolled up, plant pots and pruning shears at the ready.
“I never imagined that my programmes would reach North Korea, but hopefully the calming nature of British gardening will be well received there,” he said at the time.
The censoring of Titchmarsh’s wardrobe is part of a campaign to shield North Koreans from the “malign” influence of western culture that began under the former leader, Kim Jong-il.
While his son, the leader Kim Jong-un, has permitted his entourage to use Ford Transit vans and is a fan of NBA basketball, he has warned against allowing “bourgeois culture” and “anti-socialist behaviour” to undermine North Korea’s socialist project.
In 2022, the US government-funded Radio Free Asia said the regime was cracking down on “capitalist” fashion and hairstyles, targeting skinny jeans and T-shirts bearing foreign words, as well as dyed or long hair, it said.
The original article contains 556 words, the summary contains 202 words. Saved 64%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
