SIMON Winchester is a best-selling author. You've probably seen his popular histories, in particular, The Surgeon of Crowthorne. He received an OBE from the Queen in 2006 for services to journalism and literature. He is apparently witty, charming and intelligent. And he thinks we've all been a bit unfair to North Korea.

In the London Times shortly after the death of Kim Jong-il, Winchester argued that, sure, the Hermit Kingdom has its ''flaws'', but life there is ''not nearly as bad as is supposed''. The restaurants are few, but the medical clinics are clean. The bars sell imported beer, and the hairdressers are friendly.

Former North Korean leader Kim Jong-il. Credit:Reuters

But for Winchester, the great thing about North Korea is that it isn't South Korea. The North hasn't been ''utterly submerged in neon, hip-hop and every imaginable American influence''. It is ''a place uniquely representative of an ancient and rather remarkable Asian culture. And that, in a world otherwise rendered so bland, is perhaps no bad thing.''

Never mind the poverty. The tyranny. Or that Winchester visited at the tail end of a famine that killed about 10 per cent of the population - a famine caused deliberately by a hereditary dictatorship. The real issue is Western consumerism. North Korea is desperately poor, but let's focus on how crass America is.