At last, the
breakthrough! After all these years of writing all sorts of things, fame and
riches are within reach. All I have to do is play my cards right and undertake
an admittedly tricky piece of international diplomacy.
Let’s get the facts
straight first. Kim Jong-un is a very nice man, a very nice man indeed. Yes,
yes, we all know he’s First Secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, Supreme
Commander of the Korean People’s Army, Supreme Leader, blah, blah, blah but I’m
betting he’s basically a very thoughtful, caring individual who has his
nation’s welfare, progress and general well-being at heart. You don’t get to be
a top political leader of any of the world’s great powers or even of the minor
ones, such as the United
Kingdom , unless you’re a really nice guy.
And, I repeat, Kim Jong-un, or KJ as I intend to call him from now on, is a
very, very nice man.
He’s also the
world’s youngest head of state and his youth is part of the reason I want so
much to get to know him better. He was actually educated in Switzerland and
his classmates there said he was a bit shy. But he was a good
student and got on well with others. He was ambitious, enjoyed playing basketball
and, like most students who know that education’s only a pretence for having a
good time, he wasn’t all that meticulous about attendance and his grades
suffered as a result. (These indisputable facts are essential to an
understanding of my thesis and, needless to say, I owe them all to Wikipedia.)
But from those inauspicious, even mundane beginnings,
he has progressed to a condition described by the Korean Central News Agency as
‘a great person born of heaven’ and inspired the ruling Workers' Party to
declare in an editorial, ‘We vow with bleeding tears to call Kim Jong-un our supreme
commander, our leader’. (NOTE. ‘Bleeding’ in this context is not the same as
its usage in such English expressions as ‘Oi, mate, what’s the bleedin game
then? Leave it out, you bleedin tosser.’)
So where does KJ fit
into my own plan for JK Rowling-style world domination? The answer’s easy. I
ask you to picture one of those gatherings where thousands of those present and
many millions watching on TV weep and wail and gnash simply because KJ exists
and is among them. He has only to raise his hand for a silence to fall on the
multitude (broken only by suppressed sobs of ineluctable joy), he has only to
take one step and they will follow, however deep the abyss towards which he
leads them.
Now I ask you to add
just one element, one gesture and two words to the scene. In his hand he holds
a book. He raises it for them to see and says just two words, ‘Buy this’. The
resultant KJ-provoked sales would make JK look like a no-hoper. And that will
be the effect of my diplomatic endeavours because recently, to my great
surprise, I received two copies of one of my non-fiction books, Brilliant Study Skills, IN KOREAN! The
attached illustrations are proof of its existence, and I’m hoping the one with the
blurb about me conveys the fact that I am one of KJ’s greatest fans.
On the other hand
(and this is where the tricky diplomacy comes in), I must be careful not to
alienate South Korea and it may be that I have to indulge in a wee apostasy,
denounce my erstwhile mate, KJ, and cut my losses because the population of South
Korea is twice that of the North.
Democracy can be annoying at times.
Democracy can be annoying at times.
I smiled all the way through your post! Such fun. Shades of Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I thank you for the larger print.
I forgot! Congrats on being published in Korean.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate your humor, Bill, and echo Jackie's congrats on your Korean edition.
ReplyDeleteThanks, both, (although Swift and Pope are hard acts to follow, Jackie). Unfortunately, KJ hasn't as yet given me the desired plug, but I wait patiently...
ReplyDelete