Weekend Reading #295

This is the two-hundred-and-ninety-fifth weekly edition of our newsletter, Weekend Reading, sent out on Saturday 7th December 2024

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What we're thinking.

More all-time highs and Bitcoin over 100k albeit not for long until a flash crash of sorts sent it down 8% or so in a few seconds late on Thursday. It then rallied towards 100k again. Exhausting! We cannot help but wonder how next year is going to be a good year. Who is left to buy? Geopolitics came back with a vengeance (not that it really went anywhere) with Syria erupting as we discuss below. As much as we hope for a quiet December, we doubt it will be. Next week will be our last newsletter of the year as we take some time to recharge in December ready to go again in the new year. 
 

What we're reading.

Syria is where the action has been this week as a rebel group called Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham has blazed a trail from Aleppo to Homs and suddenly it's all up for grab again. The prevailing sentiment is that Hezbollah can’t help as it's been decimated by Israel, Russia is bogged down in Ukraine and hence Assad is man alone. One man who most certainly has been in the thick of this is none other than Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has been biding his time most patiently since his last attempt to expand his borders didn’t quite work out. Except this time despite not officially backing Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham so as not to publicly upset the Russians and cause a reaction, he is seemingly backing them quietly. Damascus is next unless Putin decides to reallocate resource and fast. He does have a naval base to look after. This is a massive battleground for supremacy and if Assad’s regime does fall it will have major implications for Russia/Ukraine, for Israel and indeed for the US. This article from one of my favourite blogs, War on the Rocks, gives an excellent summary of who Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham are and what they stand for. 

This is a great observation from one of my favourite X accounts, Autism Capital. This week Elon’s Tesla pay package got shot down again in a Delaware court. So it’s twice by the same judge. What I didn’t know is that the same judge forced Elon to buy Twitter all those years ago when initially he balked at the price he had agreed to pay. If this is a case of lets screw Elon at all costs rather than let justice prevail (we don’t know but we suspect) then the great irony of her forcing the Twitter deal led to him becoming the man behind the Trump election win with the only platform that had not been captured by the mass media censorship complex. Funny how life turns out. DC 

I picked up an old book from an Airbnb we were staying in entitled “The Assassini” by an author called Thomas Gifford – it turns out that the late author was quite the superstar in thrillers, though I admittedly had never heard of him before. As for the book, I’m about 10% through and it’s building up to quite an interesting, fascinating and perhaps slightly exaggerated and conspiracy-theoretical in style, with the plot circling around church politics, dissident nuns and a killer priest. At least that’s what I gather from it so far. Published about 13 years before the much more famous and controversial Da Vinci Code, it’s a fascinating reminder of how intriguing the idea of the Church and the Vatican as an institution is. EL 

What we're watching.

This week I sat down with my good friend who goes by the name, Moses, to watch Gladiator, the original starring Russell Crowe. We were laughing that we have got to an age where we can watch all the great movies of our youth all over again and most of the time not remember much about them other than they were great movies. Which is actually brilliant because you get a recommendation from your former self. Like GenAI but real. And Gladiator did not disappoint. What a movie. This was required viewing for next week when we are off to see the sequel at the cinema. There is zero chance it will be as good but hey here’s to hoping!  

On the topic of mass media censorship, I had a Rogan pod lined up to listen to featuring a guy named Mike Benz. So, when my friend Oz messaged me to listen to it literally the evening before I was going to, it was a message from the universe to focus. I didn’t know much about Benz. His bio is “a former official with the U.S. Department of State and current Executive Director of the Foundation For Freedom Online, which is a free speech watchdog organization dedicated to restoring the promise of a free and open Internet.” I am prone to hyperbole but my goodness this was the wildest interview I have ever listened to. Ever. Even Rogan barely said a word with the odd exception of “whoa” or “Jesus” or similar. With all the talk recently of the deep state and its reach into information warfare etc, I could never have dreamed that someone could explain so lucidly, with deep knowledge and evidential illustration as Benz does. Every minute of the 3 hours (on 2x speed) was worth it. What this episode does leave me is stunned. When we are told nothing is as it seems, it is really true. What lays ahead is the most tumultuous period in American and global politics in many, many decades. The battle lines are drawn, and no one is giving up just yet. I sense much volatility and pain ahead. Incidentally the blowback to this episode has been massive with Rogan accused of platforming Benz, who is yip you guessed it – accused of being a Kremlin agent. This is how you know it's so important. Make of it what you will but at least make something! DC 

What we're listening to.

Walter Russell Mead has his view on Syria too, though as he openly states in this episode, he is also really unclear as to what the lay of the land is. Either way it's helpful framing and mapping out of the various scenarios – particularly for Turkey and Israel. DC 

What we're doing.

My worldly adventures for the year finally draw to a close as I touched down at Heathrow on a cold winter morning last Sunday. This past week has been an incredibly tiring one, initially departing from Singapore having spent the past few weeks there, before heading to Kuala Lumpur as well as Hong Kong for several packed days of meetings and catchups with friends before flying back to London. With each visit I become increasingly familiar with these cities, learning my way around and discovering interesting quirks that make them each unique. When travelling, my commentary within this blog often focuses on my culinary exploits, so therefore this week shan’t disappoint. Singapore's highlight of the week was a Satay Bee Hoon at a hawker spot famous for being frequented by none other than Lee Hsien Loong in Beauty World (now moved into a new temporary space just opposite the MRT station). It’s a mix of prawns, pork, and other various seafood on a vermicelli noodle base, absolutely drenched in delicious chilli-peanut satay sauce.  

For Kuala Lumpur, I was staying in Bukit Bintang so of course one can’t go without visiting Lot 10 food centre where the dim sum is rather sublime, but also the Penang Duck Egg Char Kuey Teow is incredible. Aside from that the simple wonton mee with char siu pork on the nearby Jln Imbi is worth a visit. 

Finally, Hong Kong felt like a rapid visit, but sweet and simple highlights were the Causeway Bay Men Wah Bing Teng on Cannon Street for a rice and bbq pork with the thickest toast one has ever seen and classic HK milk tea, followed by a small desert at the Yishun Steamed Milk Company’s store just around the corner. HS