The cheesecake of the apocalypse

Harry Morgan is a Jewish delicatessen and restaurant in the style of New York City on St John’s Wood High Street in north London. St John’s Wood is home to wealthy Muslims and Jews, who are attracted by a lone mosque, many synagogues and more cake shops than even the greediest hedge-funder could eat his swiftly receding feelings in. I am aware I sound like an estate agent. It is really a stage set for the inter-faith organisation the Imams and Rabbis Council of the United Kingdom, about which the joke is, although it isn’t very funny: the Jews pay for it all.

I am also aware that I am writing about being Jewish. I do this because I now believe that the enlightenment is gone, that parliamentary democracy is going and that we will soon be beating each other in the streets for chicken bones. It will be like The Day of the Triffids, which was actually set on Hampstead Heath, except we won’t need flesh-eating walking daffodils to destroy our civilisation: we can do it all by ourselves! It was all metaphor! I don’t mind if you giggle, reader, and call me a dear sweet thing, just a bit excitable, I really don’t.