Finding new things to say about Kim Jong Il being dead

We haven't here done a Kim Jong Il is dead posting until now, probably because what else is there to say besides Kim Jong Il is dead? A new Kim Jong has been installed. Un. From Il, to Un. In English it sounds like going from sick to nothing. North Korea, presently terrible, will either get a bit better, or a bit worse, or a lot worse, or stay much the same. Or, if it gets really lucky, a lot better! Will paid North Korea watchers, experts in North Korean things, do any better than that? I doubt it.

I have called Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Il. Others call him Kim Jong-Il with a hyphen, or Kim Jong-il, with a small i for il. Until today I never knew of this confusion. Blog and learn.

My favourite of the Kim Jong Il is dead postings that I have seen so far is this one, at Mick Hartley's blog, which features the very last Kim Jong Il picture: King Jong Il looking at toilet paper.

I wrote all that last night, but Mick Hartley now has another Kim Jong Il is dead posting up, in which he quotes somebody called Simon Winchester saying this:

India's attempt to go it alone failed. So, it seems, has Burma's. Perhaps inevitably, North Korea's attempt appears to be tottering. But seeing how South Korea has turned out - its Koreanness utterly submerged in neon, hip-hop and every imaginable American influence, a romantic can allow himself a small measure of melancholy: North Korea, for all its faults, is undeniably still Korea, a place uniquely representative of an ancient and rather remarkable Asian culture. And that, in a world otherwise rendered so bland, is perhaps no bad thing.

Or then again, perhaps … not. No bad thing? Competition for commenters: concoct morally disgusting sentences which begin with "For all its faults …". You'll struggle to top that one. These obscene ravings are currently behind the Times pay wall, hence no link, although Hartley does supply one.

Says Hartley:

Better a starving slave state, it seems, than this ghastly modern Americanised culture.

Conservative romanticism raised to a truly idiotic level.

Commenter Martin Adamson adds:

And it's not even remotely true on its own terms. The architecture of Pyongyang is Moscow 1952. The mass displays are China 1964. Painting is Soviet Academy 1936. Music is Gang of Four Operas 1974. Dress is Bucharest 1988 etc etc.

Assuming this is the Simon Winchester in question, it seems that:

Simon Winchester is a best-selling British author living in Massachusetts and New York City.

Heartfelt apologies from Britain to Massachusetts and New York City. Apparently American culture is itself sufficiently un-Americanised for Winchester to find it livable in. Winchester has a new book out, which looks rather creepy. Let's all not buy it.