BBC's Alan Titchmarsh has trousers censored on North Korean TV

Korean Central Television (KCTV) aired a 2010 episode of Alan Titchmarsh’s Garden Secrets recently.

During the episode footage of the British broadcaster was obscured from the waist down as he knelt in a garden bed tending to plants.

https://t.co/7xh0h68FBZ pic.twitter.com/u7AGpbgOe8

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Why did North Korea censor Alan Titchmarsh's trousers?

The reason for the censorship of Titchmarsh's trousers is because he is wearing jeans which are seen as a symbol of Western imperialism and are banned under the North Korean regime.

Jeans have been prohibited in North Korea since the 1990s when leader Kim Jong-il declared them to be a symbol of Western, and specifically US, imperialism, which had no place in a socialist state, according to Seoul-based outlet NK News.

Titchmarsh told the BBC that news of the censorship of his trousers had given him “a bit of street cred”.

He said: “It’s taken me to reach the age of 74 to be regarded in the same sort of breath as Elvis Presley, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart.

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“You know, wearing trousers that are generally considered by those of us of a sensitive disposition to be rather too tight.”

He said that his jeans were not too tight but were not acceptable in North Korea.

He added: “I’ve never seen myself as a dangerous subversive imperialist. I’m generally regarded as rather cosy and pretty harmless, so actually, it’s given me a bit of street cred, really, hasn’t it?”