British gardening legend Alan Titchmarsh is perhaps the world's blandest celebrity, a man with a horny void coefficient so low that UK media amused itself by turning him into the Mr. Blobby of romance novelists. So inoffensive to power is he that totalitarian North Korea runs his show on state television. But one thing he does is so risque that they blur it out. No, no, not the talking about bacterial wilt over dinner. The problem is his jeans, symbol of American imperialism.
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… 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.
At least they're not skinny jeans.
