North Korea TV censors Alan Titchmarsh’s trousers

Alan Titchmarsh's trousers are blurred in this shot from the edited BBC television programme

By Alistair Coleman

BBC Tracking

North Korea’s position tv channel has censored a BBC planting programme- by blurring out broadcaster Alan Titchmarsh’s shorts.

Central TV aired a 2010 book of Alan Titchmarsh’s Garden Strategies for its night market, but made sure that people could not see his jeans.

In the mysterious state, jeans are viewed as a representation of western imperialism, and as a result, they are prohibited.

Titchmarsh claims that he has” a little street cred” given the news.

” It’s taken me to reach the age of 74 to been regarded in the same sort of breathing as Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart. You know wearing pants is generally thought to be a sympathetic attitude by some of us, he told the BBC.

He then continued to say that although his clothes were n’t too small, they were unmistakably inappropriate in North Korea.

He said:” I’ve never seen myself as a dangerous subversive imperial. I’m typically thought to be quite cozy and reasonably harmless, so it’s really given me some street cred, has n’t it?

Since the 1990s, North Korea has imposed a ban on clothing.

Denim pants were deemed a symbol of European, and particularly American, imperialism by then-president Kim Jong-il, who claimed it had no place in a socialist state.

A crackdown on Western culture has been a focus for the past few years, with the state-run news Rodong Sinmun telling citizens to accept what it termed “bourgeois tradition” in favor of a” superior socialist lifestyle.”

Kim Jong-un, the current president, is apparently irritated by skinny trousers and T-shirts with European logos, which are common in South Korea. He is also a fan of massive legwear.

How did North Korea get hold of a BBC initiative?

American development is extremely uncommon on North Korean television because the government is cautious about allowing foreign culture to provide the nation to the point of paranoia.

However, this is not the first time Garden Secrets has been broadcast on Central TV, with Mr. Titchmarsh claiming that he was surprised to see him” surprised” when he first appeared on TV in the Communist state.

However, it is still unclear how it first arrived in North Korea.

While access to the world’s internet and satellite dishes are prohibited in Pyongyang’s only a select few trusted classes, international media also reaches the nation, frequently on memory cards brought over the Chinese border. It is against the law to own or trade in foreign press.

How well-versed in North Korea is it?

But, North Korean TV usually pirates information from foreign broadcasters, blurring out on logos to cover the original resource.

This is often the situation with their playing of Premier League, Champions League, and International sports.

There were debate in 2014 about giving English television programs to the South Asian nation as a way to demonstrate what is known as” gentle- power,” during one of North Korea’s transitions to the West.

The Foreign Office and BBC Worldwide, the original name of the company’s business arm, were reportedly aiming to “open]the North Vietnamese person’s eyes to the world beyond the closed state without offending the regime,” according to The Sunday Times in 2014.

The paper quoted a Whitehall official as saying:” Programmes sent to North Korea would have to be something that is n’t offensive, like Mr Bean, EastEnders, Miss Marple or Poirot.

” You could n’t send Dad’s Army, as it is about war. But Teletubbies could be an opportunity, or The Great Life, with a bit of agriculture and squabbling in the kitchen”.

It’s not known if Alan Titchmarsh’s Garden Secrets was portion of this offer, or even if the programs were delivered at all.