Pyong-Yukks

From time to time, Lomblog presents reports from overseas correspondents. This week's edition of Lomblog International is excerpted from the foreign policy/Eighties hair-metal newsletter, The Gunnar-Nelson Report. The author writes to us from the North Korean capital where the activities of Kim Jung Il's government continue to arouse suspicion.

Greetings from Pyongyang,

You may have read that North Korea is again conducting nuclear tests. But what really has the capital city buzzing is a speech by the country's First, Second or Third Lady - no one is quite sure - Kora Il-Jung. Virtually all members of the state-sponsored press agree she tickled more ribs than an electric truncheon.



The following transcript from this year's NK Correspondents Dinner & Loyalty Swearing reveal why some are calling Kora "the first concubine of comedy":

"Gentlemen and gentlemen, I've been attending these dinners for years and just quietly sitting there. That's because my unswerving devotion to Dear Ruler demands total silence."

laughs

"Dear Ruler always says he's delighted to come to these dinners. Phooey. He only eats with the press 'cus he can't execute on an empty stomach."

big laughs

"Of course while he's off, I like to watch Desperate Housewives."

guffaws

"If those women think they're desperate, they ought to try living in North Korea. Can you imagine if that show were produced here? Teri Hatcher wouldn't have to starve herself!

huge laughs

"I'm the real Desperate Housewife. Seriously, I have no free will."

laughs

"Can you believe it? There are people who say my husband is the world's most evil man - and he hasn't even held them as sex slaves!"

loud guffaws, applause

"But the Great Leader and I are complete opposites. I'm quiet; he's Stalinist. I'm introspective; he's murderous. I can't pronounce 'nuclear' and he can't stop proliferating."

loud laughs, applause, standing o

"Still, he's grown a lot since I first met him. Can you believe that when I was first abducted from a state farm by his family's henchmen, he didn't even know which end of the cow to milk?"

laughs

"Of course it's even more difficult now that they all have three heads!"

loud laughs, whistles, applause, standing o

"Seriously, both of us would like to thank you for inviting us - as if you had a choice!"

laughs

"Thank you also for staying in total thrall to the People's revolutionary agenda."

applause

"See you next year - if you're good!"

laughter, loud applause

POSTSCRIPT: The whereabouts of Kora Il-Jung are currently unknown.