Fatboy Kim

the Dear Leader

Kim Jong-il, the "dear leader" son of the "great leader" Kim Il-sung, is brown bread.  He died on a train, they tell us, of "fatigue".  The North Korean news agency KCNA has a rather splendid turn of phrase at times in its English-language service.  It likes, for instance, to dub the South Korean media "venal trumpeters".  When Germany was still divided an East German delegation visited North Korea and was told "We too know the pangs of bifurcation".  KCNA has also informed us at times of various miracles associated with the Dear Leader, such as rainbows appearing, triplets being born, slogans manifesting themselves on the slopes of sacred mountains, and so on.  This kind of stuff used to be fairly normal in the commnist dictatorships only about 20 years ago, now it looks very bizarre indeed.  Anyway, Kim is no more.  His son, the younger Kim (he is Fatboy Kim) is to take over, which the military are likely to support and China not to dissent from.  So, Fatboy, feed your people.  Oh and you could try letting them have a say in things from time to time.  Kim?  Kim?

Fatboy Kim

Did you know btw that one Korean in three is called Kim? And that Kims aren't allowed to marry other Kims? Kim being the surname, and it means "gold". In Chinese characters it looks like this:

and the Korean alphabet is a truly wonderful thing - find out about it here:

Last year I saw a truly wonderful Korean film called "Poetry".  Catch it if you can.