Guess who's playing in London in February?

America's media have made much of the New York Philharmic's going to Pyongyang. They have waxed eloquent about the programme which will include Gershwin's 'American in Paris', as a way of showing the naughty North Koreans about freedom of expression and choice. They do not speak of the long negotiations as to the visit and to the programme selections. The very same media are silent so far about the visit of the North Korean National Orchestra's playing in early February in the United Kingdom. Our British ally whose relationship in this looking glass world of politics is a living embodiment of what Deng Xiao ping called China's relationship with North Korea, lips to teeth, and this is surely true for Blair's uncritical support in mini mouse Bush's war in Iraq. Still, London has welcomed delegations from North Korea before, and during the 1966 World Cup games during which the North Korean soccer team eliminated in the first run powerful Italy, a town in England adopted these footballers as though they were of the British soil born. So the parallel visits of orchestras have a meaning. They would have had greater impact had the US welcomed the orchestra from Pyongyang to play in New York.