North Korea TV censors Alan Titchmarsh's trousers
 

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North Korea's state television channel has censored a BBC gardening programme - by blurring out presenter Alan Titchmarsh's trousers.

Central TV aired a 2010 edition of Alan Titchmarsh's Garden Secrets for its morning audience, but made sure that viewers could not see his jeans.

Jeans are seen as a symbol of western imperialism in the secretive state and as such are banned.

Mr Titchmarsh said the news has given him "a bit of street cred."

"It's taken me to reach the age of 74 to be regarded in the same sort of breath as Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart. You know wearing trousers that are generally considered by those of us of a sensitive disposition to be rather too tight", he told the BBC.

He then went on to say that his jeans were not too tight, but were clearly not acceptable in North Korea.

He said: "I've never seen myself as a dangerous subversive imperialist I'm generally regarded as rather cosy and pretty harmless so actually it's given me a bit of street cred really hasn't it."

North Korea's rules prohibiting jeans have been in place since the 1990s.

Back then, leader Kim Jong-il declared denim trousers to be a symbol of Western - and specifically American - imperialism, which had no place in a socialist state, according to Seoul-based NK News.

In recent years, a crackdown on Western culture has reiterated this ban, with state-run newspaper Rodong Sinmun telling citizens in 2020 to reject what it termed "bourgeois culture" in favour of a "superior socialist lifestyle".

Current leader Kim Jong-un, himself a fan of voluminous legwear, is reportedly irked by skinny jeans and T-shirts bearing Western logos which are popular in South Korea.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-68664644

:joker: this may happen in Cork soon

No one wants to see his over sized marrow

:joker:

…Alan and his skinny jeans, always pushing those boundaries and symbols of Western imperialism with his begonias and potatoes, that one…it’s good that North Korea finally called him out on it…

Looks like this is fake news. For Joe Lycetts show haha so funny 🤨 **** off C4 with our bullshit programming. Apparently there are a load of other fake news stories that have been circulated too.