Alan Titchmarsh has said he’s going to start wearing a tweed suit and bowler hat after his jeans were censored on North Korean TV.
The 74-year-old Gardening guru spoke out after it was revealed that Korean Central Television blurred out his jeans when it aired an episode of Alan Titchmarsh’s Garden Secrets earlier this week.
Jeans are banned in the country, as they are considered to be ‘subversive’, with Kim Jong-Un saying they are examples of ‘Western Imperialist’ fashion.
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The former Gardeners’ World host – who has written 40+ gardening books, 11 novels and 3 memoirs – has been popular in North Korea since his shows started airing in 2022. North Korea airs very little ‘foreign’ TV, but makes an exception for sport, science, gardening, cooking and tech.
(Image: Credit: BBC/KCTV via Pen News)
Dad-of-two Alan initially said he was ‘flattered’ that anyone could think of him as ‘subversive’, but said the jeans he was wearing had long since been binned after they wore out. Writing to The Times on Thursday, Alan – however – said he was considering a change of apparel. Published in the Letters to the Editor page, Alan wrote: “Sir, having fallen foul of the sartorial requirements of North Korea by wearing denim jeans, I feel that the only option left to me is to wear a Harris Tweed suit and a bowler hat.”
(Image: BBC/KCTV)
Alan, who was awarded an MBE in 2000, was Madame Tussauds most-kissed waxwork during his time on the BBC ’s Ground Force, with fans constantly leaving their lipstick marks on him. He also scooped second prize in the Bad Sex in Fiction Awards in 1998 with his novel Mr MacGregor – pipped to the post by Sebastian Faulks’ novel Charlotte Gray.
(Image: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Among the racy lines in the gardening guru’s book include: “Beads of sweat began to appear on Guy’s forehead as he became more entangled in the lissom limbs of this human boa constrictor.” “For fully fifteen minutes their mutual passion heightened, with groans, sighs and liquid noises.” When the gardener was handed his MBE by the Queen in 2000, he said she told him: “You give a lot of ladies a lot of pleasure.”
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Source: Celebrities - dailystar.co.uk
