DPRK

The Happy Workers

Everybody wears a Kim Il Sung enamel badge on their lapel. North Koreans supposedly get into trouble if they lose their Kim badge but I was able to persuade one guy to part with his on the train back to China. For the record his only knowledge of England was Manchester United but I put him on the straight and narrow by giving him a Bradford City badge as a replacement icon.

The lack of obesity in North Korea is striking and a reminder of the precarious food situation that has existed for the past decade. Tourists eat well however and are provided with pickled cabbage (kimchi) in abundance three times a day – something I found more effective than the Atkins Diet for weight loss. It doesn't escape your notice that, judging from photographs and portraits, the Dear Leader has managed to avoid food shortages.

Many of the local women wore national costume, or rather the North Korean polyester version thereof which is produced in each of the primary colours as well as bright pink.

A North Korean wedding party. A honeymoon awaits in the workers' paradise (as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was called until recently).

The masses stand by the roadside with garlands to welcome a forthcoming march past of the Korean People's Army. What better way to spend a public holiday?

The stare of the two Kims must surely encourage attention in the lectures of the People's Study House in Pyongyang. For an institution lauded as a study centre there were few books and even fewer students. The visit was fascinating: in a music lab the radio cassette players were all fixed on a single radio station; in a computer lab (PCs all running Windows XP) the students chatted on MSN type software on an intranet – I found access to the internet not possible even though the guide claimed that students were able to access internet search engines; despite claims about a world press reading room with the latest copies of foreign newspapers I was told that 'there wasn't time for a visit'.

Heaven forbid that I should be sceptical.