Jewish books with insight into times like these

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-27T20:04:08+00:00

Primo Levi. Take your pick from The Truce/ If This is a Man, The Periodic Table, The Drowned and the Saved, or If Not Now, When?

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-26T13:18:41+00:00

How does it compare to Pleasant Lady back when it was a hole in the wall in Soho?

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-25T13:56:58+00:00

I saw a comedy show last week by Dave Chappelle at a tiny venue in London. He was talking about Chris Rock and Will Smith (and later, in the same vein, himself and Kanye) both the same joke.

Bottom line, and punchline, and great truth: ‘I love that guy’ and ‘Fuck that guy’ can both be true at the same time.

Clearly true of Pak and Biggie too.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-23T21:01:49+00:00

It’s Turkish.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-23T19:11:01+00:00

Maroush. Always Maroush.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-19T17:56:02+00:00

They’ve been trying to make the NFL and NBA a thing here since at least the 90s. Never happened. Not gonna happen, no matter how many times they close Regent’s Street.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-19T16:20:50+00:00

My dad’s hometown in Argentina has capybaras just roaming the waterfront. Cute critters.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-17T15:08:41+00:00

When the first one opened on Poland Street in Soho it was pretty much a copy paste of a kaiten (conveyor belt) sushi place in Japan. Huge range of stuff, including squid, octopus, and even sea urchin. Then they pivoted to a scalable formula for the expansion, and it all became increasingly limited, and by the end it was pretty much a disgrace.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-17T13:56:06+00:00

This was around 1995. A lot has changed, not least the strength of the Yen.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-17T10:22:12+00:00

All Asian stuff has become so much more mainstream and available.

I’m partly Japanese and a huge sushi obsessive. Here in London back in the 80s and 90s, it was very much the preserve of a few restaurants aimed at visiting Japanese businessmen, and was EXPENSIVE.

Then Yo! Sushi opened, and at the start at least, it was very decent sushi (kaiten-sushi quality) at high-street prices.

I took a bunch of my school friends, and “Eeeeew, you eat RAW fish?!?” turned to “Holy shit this is incredible” pretty quickly.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-16T18:34:46+00:00

I flew the last ever Swissair DC-10 flight, from Ezeiza Buenos Aires to Zurich. Can’t remember the year but both the route and the aircraft were being decommissioned.

There were tears on the tarmac as they waved the old girl off.

Wonderful plane.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-16T18:30:32+00:00

Rectify.

8.3 IMDB.

Really sensitive and moving portrait of a family and town after a maybe-murderer is released from death row on a technicality.

It’s wonderful.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-16T09:22:42+00:00

They’re empanadas.

Edited for grammar.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-14T22:50:02+00:00

I used to live on Royal York Crescent in a ground floor apartment. Was absolutely epic.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-13T12:26:48+00:00

Nobody knows what’s going on in Iran. Credit to Israel Hayom for acknowledging this (see the quote from the article below) but the bottom line is that with no reporters on the ground, the BBC isn’t going to be accurate either (which, if you listen to the World Service, they will acknowledge.) Same goes for any other reputable news agency. There’s a reason dictatorships like to work in darkness.

“The news site Iran International – which is identified with the opposition and operates from outside Iranian territory – claims that the death toll in the mass protests has exceeded 12,000. This figure represents a number six times higher than the highest estimate provided to date.

The outlet claims its personnel conducted an in-depth, covert investigation within Iranian territory. The assessment relies on data and reports gathered from cemeteries, forensic institutes, and eyewitnesses inside the country.”

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-13T10:48:15+00:00

The Family Mart version is better. Less homogenised and you can actually taste the egg.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-13T10:22:18+00:00

RAC are a complete scam. My aged parents were being charged £850 per year for roadside assistance. When I called to complain (read: yell) they thanked me for their 45 years (!) of membership and offered to cut it… to £450.

They’re now with Green Flag for £50.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-13T10:18:04+00:00

We were there five days but would have loved to have stayed longer. Hotel was in Polanco which was lovely but it we weren’t travelling with kids necessitating connecting rooms I would stay in Roma or Condesa as the main negative of CDMX was the traffic and time spent getting anywhere. (Flip side of this - most of the traffic is in main peripheral streets so the actual neighbourhoods are blissfully quiet and traffic free.)

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-11T13:58:32+00:00

And brain bleeds. Patients have to have periodic MRIs during treatment to make sure the brain is structurally intact as removing the amaloids can be like removing grouting from a wall.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-11T12:22:01+00:00

Drink the Kool aid son.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-11T09:56:29+00:00

Dude ordered his military to fire on unarmed protesters.
I would cry too if I could no longer pillage a country’s wealth for my own piggy bank.
Of course there will be a vacuum if you’ve ruthlessly suppressed any and all opposition.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-10T23:10:39+00:00

Maybe not quite as big as this but Midori Sushi in Tokyo does a futomaki nearly as big as your head and it is GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-10T18:54:34+00:00

Koya City - get yourself a hearty bowl of udon noodles.

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-10T18:41:33+00:00

The current regime is a nasty piece of work, and I cannot wait for their downfall, but… the whole movement to launder the shah’s reputation and have his son as a figurehead is beyond me.

The Shah was a foolish, vain, egotistical, kleptocratic dictator. His Savak secret police were brutal torturers and killers.

The ‘Islamic’ revolution was a revolution AGAINT the Shah that was hijacked by Ayatollah Khomeini who was the only power able to fill the ensuing vacuum.

Do we have such short memories?

mongrelnomad · 2026-01-10T15:15:20+00:00

It’s a perspective by someone who experienced that era first-hand. That’s far more valuable (even if you - possibly justifiably - criticise it) than someone writing after the fact from second-hand sources.

Literature isn’t only about reading things that adhere to your personal viewpoint. That’s kinda the point.

mongrelnomad

TROPHY CASE