Before he became a nuclear menace, Kim was a constant source of amusement to me, taking regular full-page advertisements in our national newspapers to tell us about his four-year plan, which was rather like Crossroads with tractors.

Kim filled all the museums in North Korea with assorted twaddle relating to himself, and in the great tradition of madmen, had portraits and statues of himself erected all over the towns and cities, which people had to salute as they passed.

In many respects, he was a lot like Saddam Hussein, the high priest of repression, jailing and torturing anyone who showed the slightest sign of sanity.

So far as the people were concerned, however, there was one slight difference. North Koreans do not have the problem that Iraqis have of desperately trying to look like their leader.

You have no doubt noticed that all Iraqi men sport the same silly moustache and grin that Saddam wears, which pleases the leader greatly, as it makes the job of assassins that much harder. They could never be certain they were killing the right lunatic.

It must be terrible living in countries like these, where you wake up one morning to discover the town is full of huge pictures of some uniformed basket-case who has clearly come to power while you were snoring.

You've then got to grow a moustache and learn the words of some silly song before nightfall, unless you want to be permanently relieved of the bother of cutting your nails.

I wonder what it's like inside the head of these leaders. It must be bedlam, with all those voices howling away, and the pervading feeling of destiny throbbing like billy-ho in the temples.

Personally, I think it's the climate and terrain that drives these people loony. And being foreign, of course. When you're surrounded by sand or jungle, and there's ascorching sun beating down on your head, things can get a bit of out of proportion.

Fortunately, we don't have that problem here in Britain, which is why we have never had a madman (or woman) running this country. We've had a few who tap-danced dangerously close to the precincts of Broadmoor, but never any who barked in public.

Again, I put this down to the climate and terrain. We have some lovely hot days, but just when the brains begin to bubble, down comes a nice shower of cooling rain, and when one looks outside, one rarely sees deserts or jungle, save for inner city areas or council-house front gardens.

Isn't it jolly good to be British, and not have to wear a silly moustache or a green uniform? Isn't it lovely to be able to walk the streets without having to salute posters at every corner? Isn't it nice to be able to put both hands in your pockets and whistle Colonel Bogey, and know that when you pull your hands out, they'll still be there?

It would be nice to think that the same freedoms will one day apply to those governed by madmen, dead and still alive, but we will never live to see that happen, no more than they will.

Our political pendulum swings between right and left, and never too far in either direction. Theirs swings from lunacy to lunacy, and all the way. It's all frying pans and fires.