Agreement may be bogus--claim

The agreement signed by US President Donald Trump and North Korean Chairman Kim Jong-Un in Singapore on June 12 may be bogus, says an Australian-based Korean language professor.

The startling claim comes from Professor Sam Sung of New South Wales’ Macquarie University who says that, whilst there is no doubt the historic agreement “signed” by the two leaders carries the President’s felt pen signature with its characteristic flourish, Kim Jong-un’s is an entirely different story.

Professor Sung claims the North Korean leader has not signed his name at all. 

Instead, Professor Sung says, Kim Jong-un has left the message, “Get a proper haircut you fat prick!”

Professor Sung’s staggering statement has been disputed in many quarters. Professor Thomas Suckitinsee of Tokyo University says the word prick is not found in the Korean language and Professor Sung’s translation is incorrect. The Institute of International Studies’ Joachim Crock, who is acknowledged as an expert  in North Korean affairs, says the word “fat” is not used by Chairman Kim nor by any in his inner circle.

In reply, Professor Sung admits there is no direct translation of fat prick and it could conceivably  be translated as “huge penis”, although this is not thought to refer to the American President.

There has been no comment on the claim from North Korean officials. However, President Trump tweeted this morning that he thought (Chairman) Kim had a “tremendous” sense of humour and the alleged message was just another example of “the very very good relationship I have with every world leader.”

Canadian Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, declined to comment on President Trump’s tweet but late this morning issued a press statement saying  that “finally” he (Trudeau) and Chairman Kim had something they could agree on.

#wtffakenews

-->

Regrets? They have had a few.

The relentlessly positive among us will have found much of delight in 2017 and even more so to anticipate in 2018.
Regrettably, I am not among them. In fact, I am full of regrets. Just kidding; 2017 was admittedly rough; however, I have a much more positive outlook for 2018. But I know there are others who must look back over the past year and have a few regrets as well as perhaps some satisfactions. This is just conjecture, of course. But of (other’s) regrets I have a few:

Jacinda Ardern

Must regret winning the election. She probably would have preferred rolling Andrew Little after a (lost) election and serving an apprenticeship as Leader of the Opposition. Her one point of satisfaction may be the record profits made by Lumino Dentists’ parent company and the contribution she undoubtedly made to that.

Bill English

Has no regrets, least of all about losing the election. At most, he would have had only three more years before being tossed out by Jacinda. Now all he has to do is wait for this so-called coalition to collapse and he is back—probably for the long run.

Winston Peters

Also has no regrets. He got what he wanted and had fun doing it. He also got rid of that pesky Northland Electorate and having to deal with real people.

Matt King

The man who unseated Mr Peters in Northland. Obviously satisfied and as yet too young and too new to have any regrets.

Kelvin Davis

Has plenty of regrets. One is being passed over as Deputy Prime Minister because of the coalition deal. But the major one will be his time as “Acting” Prime Minister and being made mince-meat by Bill English. It has just about killed off any chance of him becoming a credible politician, let alone a political leader.

James Shaw

Leader of the Green Party, surprisingly has no regrets. In fact, he has the immense satisfaction of knowing he is the deputy prime minister when Mr Peters retires or accepts his appointment as High Commissioner to the United Kingdom.

Donald Trump

Plenty of regrets. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. He wasn’t supposed to win. It was a game. An ego trip. All he can do now is play with his toys. And, no, we don’t mean Melania or even Ivanka—we mean the armed forces, as forewarned by Fryday months ago.

Hilary Clinton

Plenty of them, and they are festering.

Bill Clinton

Only one: Hilary’s home too much.

Kim Jong-Un

No regrets. Just insanely regrettable.

Have a great Christmas everyone.

Letter From Wogistan: Dear Kim

                                        The Democratic Republic of Wogistan (Inc.)

Office of the Foreign Secretary

123 Bruce Springsteen Boulevard (third door on right). Telephone: 125.

Presidente Kim Jong-Un

Presidente For Life

People’s Democratic Republic of North Korea

Pyongyang

North Korea.

Greetings from the Peoples of Democratic Republic of Wogistan.

Our xalted leader, Presidente Yoseph Flagrantlie (God give him long life and much children), great admirer. He share many of your policys.

He want visit your kingdom for state visit. He say he will bring his family to meet what left of your family. He also bring natural wine of our country and prettiest sheep.

He show soldierarity with great peoples of Democratic Republic of North Korea against bad peoples of United States of America. Join you in parade.

Need name of your hair cutter two. Want appointment.

Please send plane, but not one built by your peoples who build your missiles.

Yoseph xxx

Yoseph Wankerstan

Foreign Secretary The Democratic Republic of Wogistan (Inc.)

Proprietor Spartacus Male Gym and Bathhouse.

A Fryday About Nothing

Occasionally Fryday is torn between its self-imposed responsibility to deliver a new piece every Friday and the demands on its time from other projects. More rarely, Fryday simply wakes with nothing to say and, because nothing is planned or written before Friday, time soon runs out to write anything at all.

Such is the case today.

I woke with nothing to say. I can fall back on Trump, as indeed many would like to do. But, I covered him last week and I detect that most of us are all a bit trumped out, so we need a break. I could talk about the Port Hills fires, but they have been well and truly—and rightly—canvassed; the horror of the fires and their impact is apparent for all to see. 

There are of course, always the Fryday staples: Hamilton, Whetu, useless objects, and the various correspondents, such as Cecil C. Sackrider, Fryday employs around the world. But, I can’t think of a more useless object than Donald Trump, and all my correspondents seem to be busy. Fryday can be a very lonely place when not populated by these people.

So, there is nothing to galvanize my thoughts on this day and, yes, as predicted, I am running out of time.

Perhaps I need a change of scene and a change of pace. A journalist acquaintance tells me that next week he is off to the Cook Islands to do a travel piece. Lucky bugger. Travelling and being paid for it. That’s perhaps what I need. I read an article this week on the slowly developing North Korean tourism industry. It is apparently tightly controlled, but it is there. I wouldn’t mind trying that. However, my preferred destination is, and after once visiting it will always be, Paris. That is where I would like to go next. And if North Korean President for Life Kim Jong-un is affronted by that then he has at his disposal (pun intended) several demonstrable mitigation options. Apparently, poison being one.

So, as I look at the clock above my desk, I see that it is 6:50 a.m. NZT (2:20 a.m. in Pyongyang, so I won’t wake Him) and I still haven’t written a word on Fryday. 

That means, there will be no Fryday this week. I have simply run out of time to write anything.

And if you are wondering why I have taken 399 words to reach that conclusion, just put it down to Fryday’s attempt at delivering “fake news”. According to Mr Trump, apparently everybody’s doing it.

Job done.

Have a good weekend.

What Kim Jong-un tells us about Donald Trump

Presumptive presidential contender Donald Trump says he is prepared to meet North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un. Would we characterise such a meeting as the summit of silly hairstyles: the silliest meets the second silliest? I will leave you to determine who’s first.
But who gains from such meeting? Well, probably both men. Kim Jong-un, using the perverse logic that governs much of what he does, may feel that meeting a presidential contender gives his presidency international legitimacy—though, perversely, he doesn’t seem to care or want it. Donald Trump may feel that meeting the world’s most troublesome leader gives his candidature international gravitas, though, perversely, he doesn’t seem to care or want it. Or perhaps Trump simply wants to plant in Kim Jong-un’s mind the idea of building a wall between North Korea and those pesky southerners. Walls are good and, depending on their location, multipurpose—on the Mexican border they are good for keeping people out; in North Korea they are good for keeping people in.
But the main reason for a visit, says Trump (69), is that he believes he can talk “some sense” into the young dictator. Good luck with that—Kim Jong-un (33) acts and is little more than a petulant child—albeit a dangerous one. Trump may have more luck in his second hypothesis—getting North Korea’s only ally, China, to talk some sense into Jong-un. After all, Trump “loves” Chinese (and they of course love him)—it’s where he gets his Trump-brand shirts and ties made. Of course such a meeting—whilst likely attractive to both men—is unlikely. Kim Jong-un never leaves North Korea, even to visit China, and The Don expects the world to come to him, not the other way around.
So why is Trump postulating such an idea? Probably for that very reason—it is unlikely to happen and is therefore low-risk grandstanding on a grand scale. I doubt he would have got the same coverage had he stated his preparedness and preference to meet John Key, or my good friend Yoseph Wankerstan of Wogistan.
And there I think lies, on an as yet a small scale, the reason Donald Trump may be potentially a greater danger to the world than Kim Jong-un ever will. I believe Donald Trump has a low boredom threshold. And when he reaches it, crosses it, he does or says something outlandish—just to liven things up. At the moment that doesn’t matter. He is little more than good for a laugh. As is Kim Jong-un, unless you are living under his brutal dictatorship. But imagine what it would be like if Donald Trump became President and in charge of the world’s largest and best-equipped military monolith. What in his boredom could he do with that? Outlandish hypothesise, you say? Checks and balances, you state? Perhaps. But think upon this: Americans voted in a President (George W. Bush)who took his country to war on the basis of little more than God and the oil barons telling him to do so. Is the idea of a megalomaniac such as Donald Trump getting bored and wanting to make a big statement any less outlandish?
Perhaps. Perhaps not. What do I know? What do you know? What does anyone know about what goes on inside Donald Trump’s head.
At the moment, we seem more interested in what is on top of it.
But that could change.

Letter from North Korea

From time to time I receive correspondence from a friend whom I have known for more than a quarter of a century. Phyllis J. Fenwick (Miss) is 86 years old and, if what she tells me is true, has lead an extraordinary life. She continues to lead that life with her one all-embracing interest being her perpetual quest to find the ancestral breeding grounds of the fabled Devonport Guppy. That quest has taken her over the world and when she is overseas her usual means of correspondence with me and her other friends is Facebook, with which she is quite adroit. Currently, Phyllis in in North Korea, apparently at the personal invitation of President Kim Jong-un. Internet coverage isn’t great in North Korea, but Phyllis managed to post the following on Facebook and I thought I would share it with you. One final note: Nothing in Phyllis’s life is meant to be taken seriously and nothing is as it seems. Have an enjoyable Labour weekend.

My Dear Facebook Friends
Many of you have been writing to me asking where I am and why you have not heard from me in such a long time. Your concern for me is vey kind and I am most touched. Let me assure you I am well, but—alas, I am still waiting in Pyongang for my meeting with young President Kim Jong-un.
I have been given many excuses as to why he cannot see me and I am extremely gratified that such a busy young man is taking the time and the courtesy to keep in touch. However one wonders how one man can cram so much into such a young life. On one day, I am told, he is finding (and indeed has found) a cure for cancer. On another day, again I am told, he has succeeded in inventing a nuclear powered moped for the masses. And amidst all this I am informed he has found time to personally deliver no fewer than 20 babies at Pyongyang’s Maternity Hospital.
I am told that, more than anything else, Kim Jong-un likes making babies.
However, it remains frustrating for me not to be able see him. I even at one point suggested to one of his aids that President Kim might like to make a baby with me, but I have not heard back
So, with nothing much else to occupy my mind, I spend much of my time reading or watching television programmes. Most of the programmes are political broadcasts, though there is the odd cooking show (Kim Cooks and Kim’s Kitchen Rules among them) but there are one or two surprises such as Gilligan’s Island and The Brady Bunch, which I understand to be the President’s favourites. There is also something that looks like a North Korean version of Game of Thrones, with President Kim playing all the roles except those who die—it appears those roles are played by some of his ministers and army officers, and their death scenes are very realistic indeed!
No word on the Devonport Guppy yet. A fish was brought to me the other day for examination, but it proved nothing more than entrails from the Game of Thrones set (I am told) and was mistakenly used as a fish dish in one of Kim’s cooking programmes. I fear for the producer if Kim Jong-un hears of the mistake. He is such a perfectionist and the producer might even get a very sharp talking to.
No such harsh words between me and my very dear young friend Elizabeth, back in New Zealand. It is her birthday on Friday and I am so distraught that I shall not be back in time to share in the celebration.
However, my wish for you Elizabeth is that you have a lovely day spent among good friends who love you as I do.
And for the rest of my Facebook friends with whom I am blest have a wonderful day.
Your friend,
Phyllis.
xx

Beige of Honor

Some decades ago followers of the New Zealand Men’s Cricket team were called the Beige Brigade. It was because they adopted the then predominant colour of the team’s uniform. And whilst many of those supporters enthusiastically accepted and embraced the nomenclature there were others among us who saw Beige Brigade largely as a derisory term, haplessly promoting that most colourless of colours largely confined previously to the underwear of women who have lost hope, interest or purpose.
 The men’s cricket team soon adopted different colours—pragmatically those of its principal sponsor—and beige was soon confined to memory, a few hapless souls on the Eastern Stand at Eden Park, most of the Canterbury Cricket Crowd,  and all of The Warehouse’s ladies underwear lineup.
That was until this week. This week we saw the color (sic) make an appearance—indeed a predominant and assertive fanfare—at the latest fashion show of the self-proclaimed doyen of fashion, music and presidencies, Kayne West.
Now, as everybody knows, Kayne West struggles for kredibility in most all facets of life. His marriage to Kim Kardashian first and then and his proclamation at the MTV Video Music Awards that he would run for the American Presidency in 2020 eclipsed even his calling his son North. It is foolish to think of Kayne West as anything other than a talentless Chicago rapper with an inflated ego that borders on the Messiah Complex. If you would like examples of musicians who succeed where West fails look to P-Diddy and Usher—they at least have creed.
So, why does Fryday even mention him? Only because I am starting to feel about “our very own” Lorde in the same way I feel about Millie Elder-Holmes and Caitlyn Jenner. In Millie’s case her over-exposure is not entirely her fault, but as predicted by Fryday on August 21 we had not seen the last of her; barely a week later she was in the media again displaying and espousing a very important commentary on societal mores and their role in making her a victim of that self-same society—in other words, her latest tattoo.
Neither is it Lorde’s fault that she is pictured in the front row of Kayne West’s show, only one seat along from Kim Kardashian. But she was and she was photographed and that photograph was promoted assiduously throughout New Zealand as if New Zealand, through Lorde, had suddenly found its place in the world, and was now widely recognised—even without a new flag.
Frankly, I would have been more impressed if she had been photographed next to North Korea’s Kim Jong-un.
But she wasn’t. She was there at Kayne West’s fashion frippery where he unknowingly, and she knowingly, evoked and endorsed an image and colour that New Zealanders, seemingly with the sole exception of Lorde, have long forsaken and which today is treated much as an embarrassment.
OMG!
Lorde wears beige!
Tell me it is not so.
Lorde help us.

Phyllis J. Fenwick: Letters from North Korea.

Fryday is fortunate in having readers throughout the world who take time to comment on various posts. We rarely publish those comments, but are no less grateful for them.  Even rarer do we give Fryday over to another writer. An exception is the self-styled and self-appointed  “international correspondent” for Fryday Miss Phyllis J. Fenwick. Miss Fenwick, 86 years old, is on a perpetual quest for the ancestral breeding ground of the Devonport guppy—a fish that the whole world, apart from Ms Fenwick, knows could not possibly exist. Often, as in this case, she writes to Fryday about her adventures. If you would like to know more about those and Phyllis and her doomed quest, including her recent trip to Somalia, she has a Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/phyllis.fenwick.3. Currently, Phyllis is on her search in North Korea at the personal invitation of “Supreme Leader” Kim Jong-un. Whilst there is difficulty communicating with the outside world, she did manage to get this through to us earlier this week. Have a good weekend and remember: nothing should be taken too seriously.

Dear Fryday Friends
Greetings from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. As you can imagine, I am so excited to be here. Ahead of me, I am told, is to be an audience with the young president for life, Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Why such a young man should want to meet an old woman such as me, is beyond me.
However, I am told that he does and is even most insistent on it, so perhaps he too shares our interest in the ancestral breeding grounds of the Devonport Guppy and is willing to materially assist my search.
Certainly, everybody has been most helpful since I arrived. There was a representative of the North Korean Government there to meet me when I arrived at Incheon airport in South Korea. He very quickly ushered me into a car and we headed north. A nice young man who sadly smiled very little, he said through an interpreter that we would be travelling on back roads for the most part so I could see as much of the country as I could. How very kind of him to think of that. When we arrived at the border with North Korea, he said he would have a new experience for me. Indeed he did! Instead of crossing the border as most tourists do, he took me through a very special tunnel under the border! I felt very special. He said that the tunnel, I believe it is three miles long, was dug single-handedly by Kim Jong-un’s father, Kim Jong-il in three days! Extraordinary!
Now I am in Wonsan, the administrative seat of the province of Kangwon. I am impatient to head north to the nation’s capital Pyongyang to meet the President, but I am told the delay is because I first have to be greeted formally by Kangwon’s governor. The problem is that they do not yet know who it will be this week. And here, my friends, we arrive at one of the most outstanding revelations yet of my thus far short stay in Korea.
Contrary to what I was told before leaving for Korea, North Korea is not an authoritarian state ruled by a dictator. In fact, and here I am sure you will be as astonished as I, it is the most democratic country I have ever visited.
The people here all owe that to their much loved supreme leader Kim Jong-un who carries on the tradition of his father Kim Jong-il and grandfather Kim II-sung (I am wondering if they are related to that dreadful Kim Dot-com, but I think not).
According to my guide and his interpreter, the family has always been insistent all North Koreans have a leadership opportunity. Kim Jong-un personally selects the country’s leaders, as did his forefathers before him, and to ensure that everybody gets an opportunity those leaders rarely last more than a week.
What a wonderful system. New Zealand has much to learn from North Korea.
So, I am waiting to find out who Kangwon’s governor is to be this week. I am sure he will be very nice.
Indeed everybody I have met has been most obliging, and most industrious—perhaps too industrious. Yesterday, I spoke to my guide and his interpreter about the breeding habits of the Devonport Guppy. Just three hours into my dissertation, the interpreter rose and said he and his guide were required elsewhere on urgent government business. They promptly left and I haven’t seen them since. When I mentioned this to the manager of my hotel, he said I was not to worry. He said that many North Koreans disappeared and were never seen again. Funnily enough, he must be one of them. I have not seen him since, either.
Yours sincerely, your friend,
Phyllis J. Fenwick (Miss).

Kim

-->

To me, having an innate aversion to a name is irrational and illogical. Yet I have it.  In my early days the name was Felicity. But at least I could explain why I disliked Felicity—I disliked Felicity. Felicity Smith was a girl who followed me in every primary class we attended. She latched on to me like a limpet and it was only when we went to separate secondary schools that she stopped. Felicity was never popular and was as a consequence lonely and morose—which only added to her problem and in retrospect my own: the guilt I now feel for the way I treated her which ran along the lines of I don’t want to be associated with you because you are bad for my image.

That said, I still have an aversion to the name Felicity. But at least I have an explanation as well.

But how do I explain Kim? Why do I not like the name Kim? Is it again that I associate it with the traits of some people I do know of that name though not intimately—Kim Kardashian, Kim Dotcom and Kim Jong-un? Maybe.

I am such an evil devious bugger that I even went on the Internet to find other people named Kim whom I could dislike. What I found surprised me—not the number of people, but the number of sites devoted to the name Kim. There is of course the omnipresent Wikipedia listing, but there also any number of sites listing famous people named Kim (they all seem to come up with the same three I did) and one site for “Men named Kim”.  There is even a site for people who wished they were named Kim. For those of a scientific bent there is a Web-thesis on the gender-neutrality of Kim.

None of these sites adds much to the store of common knowledge but they perhaps illustrate the fact that you can find anything about anything on the Internet, and that there are too many people with too much time on their hands. Like me.

I will now go and do something useful.  Before I go, however, there are some riders to this Fryday. They are:

1.     I know very few people named Kim.

2.     The only Kim with whom I have a close acquaintance is one of the loveliest people I have met and of whom I have the greatest admiration and adoration.

3.     None of the other Kims I have mentioned have invited me to any of their parties (in the case of Kim Dotcom he seems to have invited everybody else) and thus allowed Fryday to form a different opinion of them. Until they do…

And finally...Felicity. My hope there is that she has grown to live a full and happy life.  That won’t assuage my guilt, but it will at least allow me to think she has the strength and the depth to smile benignly and knowingly on my apology.
Happy Valentine’s Day Felicity, wherever you are.