Read those runes carefully. Actually: no need. Today’s signs from the often impenetrable North Korea are pretty clear and have been long signposted.
It is day one of the Workers Party Conference and Kim Jong-il, who is ill, has promoted his younger son, Kim Jong-un – I’ll spare you the inevitable pun – to the rank of general.
It is the sort of move we expected him to make in preparation for his long-awaited dynastic handover. Kim’s father was the Eternal leader, until he died, and Kim the most Jr – whose experience of the West includes time at a Swiss boarding school and a liking for Michael Jordan – is tipped to take over.
State TV glossed over Kim’s lack of military experience when announcing his elevation to the rank of four star. They did say a major development was underway. Further details were not supplied and were not needed. We know what’s coming and can visualise the splendidly absurd parades to boot.
Humour has a habit of becoming the stock response to North Korea’s extremes of totalitarian excess.
It is so other worldly, so disconnected from its population’s slow starvation and decline, that is it comedy over tragedy. But this is the macabre deathlove of Dr Strangelove all over again: North Korea is deeply unfunny.
It has the bomb, and hates its neighbour with a passion born of their conflict (they’ve been at war technically since the 50s) being the regime’s raison d’être. And now a 28-year-old, one with a hell of a lot to prove to a militaristic and jealous elite, will soon be in charge.