
Sophie In North Korea - cramforce
https://sites.google.com/site/sophieinnorthkorea/
======
elisehein
I've been lucky enough to have visited NK as well and unsurprisingly
everything I read lined up perfectly with my own experience. Most likely
tourists from all over the world are always shown the stock tour. Our guides
were incredibly insistent that we see everything, too -- that means no
suggestions for other activities and definitely no wandering off.

One of my most memorable take-aways was also a visit to a school that we were
told was one of the best in the country. We were taken to a room where
students had formed groups around several desks, all performing different
tasks (one desk had microscopes, the other a pc, yet others had more
contraptions, probably for demonstrating mechanical processes). As was
mentioned in the story, they weren't actually _doing_ anything, they were just
sitting there looking at the machinery in front of them and trying to look
like they were about to discover something huge. They must've been the best
actors in the school, and probably were very proud of themselves to have been
chosen to present to such a prominent audience.

~~~
caf
Friends of mine used to work in a building that also contained the help desk
for external customers. One day when a customer delegation was visiting the
help desk, they were all brought in and told to sit at the empty desks and
pretend to take calls.

Their headsets weren't even plugged in.

~~~
elisehein
It just makes my skin crawl :/

------
travisp
This was an interesting read and very much in line with other travelers'
reports. However, I do wonder about this part:

>Go to North Korea if you can. It is very, very strange.

Is it really a good idea to go if you don't have a particular reason (such as
this diplomatic trip)? I recall that most human rights groups recommended that
tourists not visit Burma until recently so as not to support the regime. For
someone like me who would only be going to satisfy my own curiosity, would I
not simply be supporting the North Korean regime? I would be giving them money
and possibly helping them in their propaganda efforts (see, look, at this
American who has come to visit our great country!). I can't think of any ways
in which my visit would be good or helpful.

~~~
mynegation
I went to Burma for two reasons. First, the country isolated from the rest of
the world can be an eye-opening experience. If you are, say, North American,
and all you go is Western Europe you will never quite learn to appreciate what
you have. To me the biggest surprise was how warm, cheerful and hospitable
Burmese people are, in a country where poverty is rampant, infrastructure is
almost non-existent and freethinking is oppressed.

And the second reason is that you can try to direct your money more to the
people than government by staying and eating in small family establishments
rather than pricy hotels that are almost always are controlled by the
government.

~~~
travisp
You might have been able to do that in Burma. I know people who have travelled
to Burma, Cuba, and other places and made similar arguments that I sympathize
with. But you can't do that in North Korea: you can't go stay in small family
establishments or choose where to eat. The entire trip is managed by the
government and even trying to give money or talk to anyone about politics is
probably risking the life of the person you talk to.

That leaves your first reason, which seems like a very self-focused reason --
I could learn the same thing from visiting other countries (or spending time
reading up on the many accounts of North Korea, particularly those who have
escapes).

~~~
seanmcdirmid
Burma was never really clamped down like NK, heck, even Cuba isn't really
clamped down. NK is probably the harshest state in the world with respect to
freedom, and that alone probably makes it an interesting and unique visit. Ya,
you are giving Kim Jong Un some money, but...if it would be an eye opening
experience neh? If NK ever opens up, you won't have the oppurtunity every
again!

~~~
lilsunnybee
> If NK ever opens up, you won't have the oppurtunity every again!

Thank goodness for that. The sooner the better.

------
kapsel
Not trying to hijack this thread, but I recently spent almost two weeks in the
DPRK, and it was one of the most interesting and fascinating trips I ever had.

I took about 5000 photos, and uploaded about 500 of them to my Facebook
profile. There's descriptions to many of them. If you're interested, check
them out here:
[https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151040723772055....](https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10151040723772055.428189.754777054&type=1&l=32851643f6)

And feel free to ask any questions. I'll recommend visiting their country if
you get the chance.

~~~
wavesounds
If a visitor was so willing, is there any possible way of sneaking in any kind
of communication equipment that the people there could possibly use? Perhaps a
solar powered raspberry pi with wifi and satellite hookup? USB drives full of
information that could be dropped off on random doorsteps when nobody was
looking? Well trained carrier pigeons to relay messages to the south? Did you
see any possible opening for any kind of hacktivist way of helping these
people gain access to information?

~~~
kapsel
Easily. Most in our groups brought some sort of newspapers into the country,
they were never confiscated. Our guides would actually ask if it was on to
read the newspapers, and our guides knew about what's going on outside of
their country. They would know about Assange, Occupy Wall street, Obama etc.

I brought an iPad, my laptop and my iPhone - they only took my iPhone when i
entered the country - or, actually, they forgot, and I gave it up later on the
trip, as I didn't want to get in troubles when leaving.

I could easily have left many devices there, with information etc.. In terms
of communication devices, not so sure. There's absolutely no wifi in the
country, and satellite devices are large, afaik.

I was war driving with my iPad in Pyongyang, searching for wifi.. NO wifi was
detected, at all. Pretty interesting.

I lend my iPad to one of the guides for a week - the guide saw Breaking Bad
Season 1 and heard Beatles and U2 :-) and even brought it home at night.

~~~
kapsel
also, guess why they forgot to take my iPhone when I entrered the country?
Because the customs guys were busy playing Angry Birds on my iPad, and looking
through my photos.. zooming in on the photos of the pretty girls that I had in
my Photostream

------
knowaveragejoe
Is anyone else confused by the layout of the article? In Chrome on a large
monitor(27"@2560x1440) it's kind of difficult to intuit the order of reading.

~~~
philwebster
Yes, very disorienting. I zig-zagged my way down the page, unsure of where to
focus next. Kind of like the Facebook timeline, but without the little ticks
to indicate where each section fit in the order.

~~~
dexter313
I kinda liked it; Even if you skip something the story is written in a way so
it doesn't matter too much.

~~~
devcpp
It sure is an interesting concept. I didn't really want to know all about
North Korea. And somehow, thanks to the layout, I think that I got the general
idea in a better way than I would have if it has been one big column.

It feels with an approximation algorithm that enables parallel processing to
an usually linear task. It saves some time to get the general idea.

~~~
swdunlop
The page reminds me of when my wife and I watched Solaris (2002) without
realizing our DVD player was on shuffle. We both enjoyed the nonlinear
narrative for a good 45m before we realized what was wrong.

Fixing the problem seemed to make the movie worse for us.

------
fatbird
This book: [http://www.amazon.ca/Escape-Camp-14-Remarkable-
Odyssey/dp/06...](http://www.amazon.ca/Escape-Camp-14-Remarkable-
Odyssey/dp/0670023329) is an interesting read about NK's system of gulags.
Because they practice generational punishment, there are North Koreans who are
born into these camps and die there.

------
rince
So for those curious - Sophie is Sophie Schmidt, daughter of Google chairman
Eric Schmidt (the Eric in the first paragraph).

~~~
endianswap
FYI the original title of the post explained this via parenthetical, but the
title was changed by the powers that be to what it is now.

------
marco_salvatori
I was actually surprised to see Sophie write up her experiences in NK. I'm
sure that, being part of diplomatic, friendship mission she had to pick a
choose her words and stories, as her write up will be associated with the
mission and members to some extent. I have never been to NK, perhaps one day I
will have the opportunity. I'm sure such a trip would challenge a lot of my
priors about what is normal and not normal and help me to understand more
about myself and my own cultural attitudes. For me that is the ultimate point
of travel.

As an example, I am an American, but I have not lived in the United States for
a long time. And each time I go back I find my own country both intensely
familiar / strange and both comfortable / uncomfortable at the same time. I
remember a couple years ago going back in Dec 2008. Obama had just been
elected president and it was the oddest feeling, as I walked about the Chicago
airport waiting for my delayed plane to Boston, to see Obama's face on
T-shirts, to see Obama's face on Time (or was it Newsweek?), to see Obama's
wife on the cover of the ladies magazines. I suppose all the Obama sign-age
didn't seem at all strange to the natives but then again I suppose, pictures
of the Great Leader don't seem out of place to the natives in NK either.

I could tell you more stories about the strangeness of seeing flags everywhere
months after 9-11 or the horror of the rhetoric that is casually accepted by
the audiences during national conventions. But what I am trying to get at is
that political and nationalistic symbols exist in every country and the trick
is not to do the easy work and point out its baseness or ridicule it when we
see it some place else. The trick is is to see what Jung would call our own
"shadow"; do the hard work; see where we have let our own institutions
manipulate our thoughts and feelings. When we can do that then one has had a
successful trip.

~~~
miked
_to see Obama's face on Time (or was it Newweek?)_

That's what I love about living in America rather than North Korea: we don't
have a news media working in lockstep to proclaim the greatness of the Dear
Leader.

~~~
DigitalJack
Was that sarcasm?

------
mathattack
This was an eye opening article.

It's a strange question, almost science fiction, "What's it like to be in a
country that is entirely brainwashed?" It's also a philosophical and ethical
question, "Are we morally required to intervene"?

The most interesting piece of the article was noting that computer science
students have access to our internet, beyond their closed off version. That
means A TON. Their minds won't be closed forever. The idealist says, "They
won't be closed forever" and there is a realization there. I think it could
take longer than people think - their poverty will be a large cause. What will
hurt more is the well educated opening their minds.

It was a very well written article. And the Eric Schmidt political cartoon was
great on many levels.

(And yes, every website should be readable on Chrome. It's no longer a one-off
browser)

~~~
noonespecial
>"Are we morally required to intervene"?

I always land on a much eerier question. How brainwashed am I? And if I am,
_how would I know_?

~~~
mathattack
Indeed! Why are we at the top of the clear thinking food chain?

You are clearly a functional programmer. :-)

------
refurb
For another fantastic travelogue about North Korea, I suggest
<http://www.1stopkorea.com/nk-trip1.htm>

It's from 2002, so things were quite different back then, but the dialogue the
traveler gets into with his guide is very interesting!

 _The next room contained more gifts from the South, including a Hyundai
Grandeur donated by the former chairman of Hyundai (whose family is originally
from the North). Mr. Huk asked me if I had ever seen one of these cars during
my time in the South. When I said, "sure, my neighbor has one just like it,"
he gave me another one of his 'you have to be lying' looks. How could such a
great gift, a gift implying so much respect, belong to some normal person like
my neighbor? This was obviously a car reserved for the elite, capitalist
oppressors, not some common car for the masses. When I told him I wished the
chairman had given away a lot more so there'd be less traffic in the South he
got fed up with my obvious lies, gave me a disgusted look and moved on to talk
to someone else._

------
edwinnathaniel
I've been a big fan of a TV show "Departures" (awesome videos by the way) and
one time they went to North Korea.

You can check out some of the video clips of their trip:

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFJJSx3Vr0c> (some intro..)

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nr3lt34bnWQ> (elementary school)

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRZvwaObOXc> (school)

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moq6ZkKZJm0> (Arirang Mass Games)

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tMoAoFy3JQ> (War Museum)

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XqA7pNN2r9k> (Kim Il Sung Burial)

<https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nbUxLAj_k18> (trip somewhere)

------
ladzoppelin
"Ordinary North Koreans live in a near-total information bubble, without any
true frame of reference. "

I always wondered if the North Koreans interviewed really have no idea what is
going on or just acting that way out of fear. I highly recommend watching the
Vice guide to North Korea to understand what I am talking about.

------
Spazze
That was a great article, but why did it look like crap on Chrome for mobile?
You would think Google would have made it easier to read.

~~~
jrockway
It is equally confounding on the desktop. But ultimately, I think it was a bad
template choice by the author rather than any particular bug in Google Sites.
(Two-column with pictures just doesn't work.)

~~~
petercooper
Yeah, I couldn't work out how to read it. Column A first? Flip-flop back and
forth. Nothing seemed to line up.

~~~
jrockway
Same here. A one column standard blog format would have been fine. Easy to
scale down to mobile, easy to read on the desktop.

------
sunwooz
I would like to visit solely because I have family in North Korea, and I would
very much like to meet the separated half :(

------
penrod
I have a hard time with the light-hearted tone of reports such as this. In one
sense the NK propaganda really is comically weird. But in another sense, if
you've read 1984 it's all too grimly familiar.

~~~
martinced
+100000.

It is comically frightening. It's so fake that you cannot help laugh about it
(just look at this thread: fake center call rooms with people pretending to be
talking while visitors noticed their headsets aren't even plugged in.
Definitely comically frightening).

But I also hate the way too rosy tone of the "report". She not reporting on
NK. She's reporting on what propaganda wanted her to see.

------
jrogers65
I try to refrain from making emotional political statements on this site but I
cannot resist.

> Go to North Korea if you can. It is very, very strange.

This is essentially advocating a visit to a huge concentration camp which is
still in operation. The abuses that go on in this country are beyond belief.
This whole article brings about a feeling of sickness in me.

------
funkaster
It seems like a nice read, but the weird layout distracted me and prevented me
from going past the first 3 or 4 paragraphs: I got lost in a mix of two vs one
column paragraphs. I tried different browsers with no luck.

In any case, I have planned to go to North Korea at some point :)

------
sakopov
Here is a set of articles from 2006 written by the founder of one of the
leading design studios in Russia - artlebedev.ru. The read is very
interesting, but unfortunately only available in Russian.

Part 1 (general): <http://www.tema.ru/travel/north-korea-1/> Part 2 (military)
: <http://www.tema.ru/travel/north-korea-2/> Part 3 (culture):
<http://www.tema.ru/travel/north-korea-3/> Part 4 (Roads & transport):
<http://www.tema.ru/travel/north-korea-3/>

------
endianswap
Can anyone recommend any good documentaries or other media on the subject of
North Korea? This was fascinating!

Edit: thanks all :)

~~~
oftenwrong
A few years ago I came across this highly disturbing testimony from a former
prisoner. There are no pictures, and no jokes. It gives a glimpse at the dark
side of North Korea, and of humanity. It is fucked up and will upset you, so
consider yourself warned.

[http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=4f...](http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/hearings/testimony.cfm?id=4f1e0899533f7680e78d03281fe18baf&wit_id=4f1e0899533f7680e78d03281fe18baf-2-1)

~~~
politician
Thanks for the warning; I chose only to read the last few paragraphs, but even
that provided enough to extrapolate. While we twiddle about in Silicon Valley
building SoLoMo apps, this depraved grinding of humanity continues.

------
jerser
What mostly strikes me about this post is how condescending she is about the
people there. It's not only about the regime, but here post is basically
belittling for the people there.

A gew gems of the post:

"How that squares with official NK agitprop that Americans are super-evil
imperialist bastards is beyond me. " Like every Korean over there wants to eat
Americans for breakfast, sigh. Yes, their official pollicy is very anti-
American, but has it every stroke her mind that they are also people? And that
they can make the distinction between "the American people" and their
government. Just as much as I hope that she can make a difference between a
person and their leaders.

"When we asked how old Un had turned (29? 30?), we were told that "Koreans
keep track of age differently" than we do. Alright, then." This one kinda says
everything about the author.

"No, silly North Koreans, you're under international bank sanctions."

All in all, whatever she writes down is an accurate observation, but I would
have wanted the tone to be much different. No I mostly read this as a rant
from someone who believes is superior to them. I would have liked it more if
it was written from a more neutral point of view. But hey, it's the internet,
ranting is what has to be done :-)

For what it is worth, I've been there a bit over a year ago and what she has
seen (besides the official visits) is more or less the same as I have seen. So
yes it is all fake of course. But I would definitely visit it again to see
other parts of the country.

------
TeMPOraL
Every time I read about North Korea, part of me keeps wondering:

How many international treaties would I break if I were to sneak in some
surveillance tech in there? Just a small robot that looks like mouse and
shoots photos, or a small UAV deployed on the South Korean side of the border?
Just to get out to the world some photos of how real NK looks like. I wonder
what kind of consequences would such an attempt have and why no one seemed to
have tried so far.

~~~
djhworld
I don't think flying a UAV from the south side of the border would be the
wisest move, considering the tension between the two countries.

You might set off a diplomatic incident.

------
sebcat
Me and a couple of friends want to go to north korea to jump off some
buildings with parachutes, any possibility of this ever happening? We've been
in contact with the local travelling guide, and while they did not toss the
idea out of the window, it seemed as if it was a pretty stupid idea from their
point of view. Can anyone here help with any hookups? We're pretty experienced
FWIW...

------
naz
> When we asked how old Un had turned (29? 30?), we were told that "Koreans
> keep track of age differently" than we do. Alright, then.

They weren't lying:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Asian_age_reckoning#Korean>

------
skurry
Very entertaining and interesting article.

One peculiar thing I noticed: Did Sophie photoshop this picture of hers?
[https://93fd9190-a-62cb3a1a-s-
sites.googlegroups.com/site/so...](https://93fd9190-a-62cb3a1a-s-
sites.googlegroups.com/site/sophieinnorthkorea/home/DSC_0378-1.jpg)

~~~
j79
To be honest, it doesn't appear to be Photoshopped - at least to my eye. Snow
is tough to photograph in general (all that bright, reflecting light!) - this
just looks like a camera exposing for the foreground and blowing out the rest.

------
justinhj
This is also very interesting. An animator/manager goes to N.Korea to oversee
outsourcing and makes a graphic novel of his experience.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyongyang_(comics)>

------
znowi
Jesus. Each time when I read accounts of North Korean travels, I almost feel
ache in my stomach picturing the eerie atmosphere, and then a sense of relief
and appreciation of my immensely comfortable life in comparison.

On the other hand, "ignorance is bliss" as they say. And without any reference
framework in sight, they may actually be _happy_...

------
agiamas
Amazing story...

spoiler alert, as these quotes were legendary:

"Not that we were allowed to talk to them, but riddle me this: How do you
explain to someone that she's a YouTube sensation if she's never heard of the
Internet?"

\- Can you help us with e-Settlement so that we can put North Korean apps on
Android Market?"

\- No, silly North Koreans, you're under international bank sanctions.

------
yequalsx
Visiting North Korea as a tourist is immoral. North Korea is one of the most
brutal, repressive regimes in the history of the world. Inhumane conditions
abound for the average North Korean and supporting such a vile regime is
disgusting. Tourists who go there ought to be ashamed of themselves.

~~~
dredmorbius
The benefit of exposing both sides to one another, in my experience, greatly
outweighs the very minor benefits of trade accruing to the regime.

Particularly when we get a travelogue such as Sophie Schmit wrote here.

------
msoad
> [can] we can put North Korean apps on Android Market?" Answers: soon, and
> No, silly North Koreans, you're under international bank sanctions.

This is not rally true, Iran is under same sanctions and you can see Iranian
apps on App Store and Play Store.

------
jnazario
a great blog with lots of pics, comments, and insights from her several trips
to NorK is "at home in the wasteland": <http://www.lindsayfincher.com/>

------
rivd
another rare photoset has been posted in a older hn-thread
(<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2152223>) the original link doesnt work
anymore, but i found the same photo's on a russian site

<http://tema.ru/travel/north-korea-1/>

------
martinced
Don't forget that it's all fake. I'm not sure the author understands how
carefully planned her trip was.

What she shows is not North Korea. What she shows is what the propaganda from
the communist party leaders wants foreigners to see. The truth is way less
rosy (which, yes, makes it really very scary).

The hotel is fake. The trafic is fake. The shops are fake. She did realize
that they do create products that don't have a market but it's worse than
that: they create fake malls (well, actually one fake mall, which every single
visitor shall see if he wants to see a mall) just to make believe visitors
that they have malls.

The entire trip is under supervision and every "delegation" that goes there
get to see the exact same things, give or take one or two things.

For example the tramway picture: it's in basically every single movie show
from foreign "journalist" who got to get there. I say "journalist" because
they're not allowed to do anything on their own: they're constantly
accompanied by members from the party.

Poverty is hidden in basically every street where, of course, you're not
allowed to go.

I speak several languages so I can watch TV from different countries: it's
always the same. At one point me and my girlfriend considered going, so we
started watching as much movies as we could about North Korea and we started
to realize that all the (totally non-connected) delegations were always doing
the exact same visits. After three of them we knew what we were going to see
in the fourth one.

What about the truth? Well independent reporters have reported famine and
people eating roots during cold winters.

It's really frightening to realize what communism does to people from both a
liberty point of view and a poverty point of view.

I'm honestly not sure the author understood what happened to her.

~~~
pyre

      | It's really frightening to realize what communism
    

Communism is such a loaded term that it's pretty meaningless at this point.
China is also 'communist,' but people aren't eating roots to survive the
winters. North Korea is a dictatorship under the guise of communism/socialism.

~~~
martinced
I realize that communists don't like the fact that Cuba ain't exactly a place
where freedom rules king, the fact that North Korea is an utter failure, the
fact that the soviet did sent opponents to communism die in Siberia (when it
wasn't downright murdering) and the fact that Che Guevara was an homophobic
and racist schizophrenic slaughterer...

Communism, no matter its form, only leads to slavery and poverty.

And it's only since we can write that China is "communist" between quotes that
they're starting to escape poverty. And people in small villages in China are
still not exactly living on very high standards so...

~~~
chii
> Communism, no matter its form, only leads to slavery and poverty.

i don't think you can blame the problems faced by those countries to
communism. The idea of communism is a good one, but the execution is always
poor - reason being that at some point, someone is going to be able to grab
power, and the whole system filled with corruption and/or systemic
mismanagement (again, due to some form of corruption). Plus, communism sounds
like a better name than tyranny, and so the tyrants call themselves
communists.

"real" communism, one which is say, managed my an AI, with no one small group
of humans in power, is probably going to be fair and equal. I'd like to see if
that could work.

~~~
davidhollander
> _"real" communism, one which is say, managed my an AI, with no one small
> group of humans in power, is probably going to be fair and equal._

Any rational agent, whether biological or artificial, A) possesses a set of
preferences, and B) seeks to maximize its preferences. If an AI obtains its
set of preferences for maximization from a group of privileged programmers or
creators, then a small group of humans is still in power in your scenario. If
the AI is responsible for deriving its own set of random preferences, then it
is effectively operating as another individual in society with no
deterministic guarantees on behavior, and to grant it governing authority is
equivalent to unchecked dictatorship.

~~~
jhuni
Our AI programs don't need to have their own preferences. Each rational agent
can be assigned an assistant AI which will derive its preferences from the
agent's already existent preferences.

~~~
gojomo
It'll be like everyone has an AI genie, granting them wishes!

------
humanspecies
Whenever one of these "inside NK" articles show up, I am more impressed by the
arrogance and the ignorance of the commenters than I am by the stories.

"OMG they're brainwashed, do we morally have an obligation to intervene" says
one smug commenter.

Well, my friend, look at Times Square. What is it? It's a fucking AD
clusterfuck. Companies, ads, fake artificial and as plastic as it gets. And
yet, no ads on NK's streets... That is so refreshing to me.

What is so inviting about capitalism? Go to Reddit and read the first page:
booze, artificial and superficial crap and social problems all over the place.
People have iphones and fancy cars but they're socially sick, alone... It may
be terrible in NK, but who are you to be criticizing them? Just because you
have iphones and an Audi in your garage, what we're seeing today is an ever
more lonely society whose only escapes are booze, pot and superficial
pleasures like buying something and showing a photo of it online.

These comments here...the top one says "it's all fake". WOW good thing it's
not as real as silicon tits or mcdonalds sandwich photos! Those are real! And
your TV ads, and your promissed dream, those are all real too! Nevermind that
you bailed out banks who robbed you and you are now getting sued by those
banks! THAT is reality folks, poor North Koreans who live under a terrible
fake regime that fools all of them!

How about those North Korean jails eh? Horrible gulags! Nevermind that the
world's largest carcerary population is in the United States of America. And
the death penalty? It must be terrible to live under a regime that straps
people to machines that kill them in barbaric ways? Oh my God, NK is the evil
empire!

How about those children faking studies?? That's awful! It's better to live in
a country where children don't even fake it! Crack, pot and god awful music
prevail in our schools, our children are grabbing machine guns to kill each
other and you find it funny to mock those poor North Koreans!

I feel sick to my stomach to see where our society is and how stupid and
ignorant and brainwashed YOU are to accept the immoral, indecent and corrupt
state YOU live under and then go on to criticize other countries whose people
are just as honest and decent as you. Their regime is failed and so is ours -
you are no better than them, never forget that. You have an iphone, they
don't, that is all you're better at.

~~~
nshepperd
> You have an iphone, they don't

Don't forget the food, internet, health care, electricity, education, and
freedom of speech. What have the romans ever done for us, eh?

