{"id":3834,"date":"2008-08-17T13:14:15","date_gmt":"2008-08-17T12:14:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/wp\/?p=3834"},"modified":"2021-11-15T13:42:07","modified_gmt":"2021-11-15T13:42:07","slug":"i-was-a-potato-oligarch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/i-was-a-potato-oligarch\/","title":{"rendered":"I Was a Potato Oligarch by John Mole &#8211; review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"text-element body\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"image-4-3 image-review alignright\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/img\/oligarch.jpg\" alt=\"Potato Oligarch\" width=\"277\" height=\"451\" \/> What was this book about? To be honest the title didn\u2019t tell me much \u2013 I Was a Potato Oligarch. Was it like being a Burger King? I knew what an Oligarch was&#8230;er, well, OK, looked it up and it\u2019s one of a small number of individuals that run a state. So where does the humble spud come into this?<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Our author and hero is John Mole, who has the idea that money could be made from fast food. It\u2019s a popular trend in Russia and he was assured that he would be able to set up a company to sell filled baked potatoes, and would soon be reaping the benefits. Sounds simple, huh? If it had been that easy this book would only have been a pamphlet and not the funny story that it has turned out to be.<\/p>\n<p>This writer has had extensive experience of dealing with people from the former eastern bloc countries and I personally would not touch a business partnership with a 10ft Volga boat pole. But John seems to be a man who will have a go at almost anything and at least he has a great book as reward for his adventure. And what an adventure!<\/p>\n<p>We could be generous and describe the ordinary Russian as&#8230;um, ..unique. They have a particular perspective that has been born of hardship and indoctrination. John seems to have been a gift to so many of the more scheming sorts, and he was very naive. A kind-hearted chap, he buys a postcard from a beautiful woman on the street. She says she is a teacher and is looking after her invalid mother. He buys a map from her and then she offers to spend the night with him. That\u2019s one of the sadder encounters, but most of the book is densely seeded with chuckles.<\/p>\n<p>\u201c&#8230;A big-boned, middle-aged woman in an ankle-length black leather coat and a Cossack fur hat, angular face and lidded black eyes and purple lips and a single eyebrow from ear to ear, a villain from a Marvel comic.\u201d &#8230;She was the doctor! Get the picture?<\/p>\n<p>This is one of the most amusing travel books around. You don\u2019t have to know any ex-soviets to appreciate the hilarious corners that John paints himself into &#8230;but if you have known any you will appreciate that John isn\u2019t exaggerating! A real good read!<\/p>\n<p>I Was a Potato Oligarch<br \/>\nAuthor: John Mole<br \/>\nPublished by: Nicholas Brealey Publishing<br \/>\nPrice: \u00a39.99<br \/>\nISBN 978-1-85788-509-5<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>Travel book review by Chrissie Walker \u00a9 2018<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What was this book about? To be honest the title didn\u2019t tell me much \u2013 I Was a Potato Oligarch. Was it like being a Burger King? I knew what [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24090,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,3485,24],"tags":[1328,1329,145,1068],"class_list":["post-3834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-books","category-culture-and-art","category-food-travel-guides","tag-i-was-a-potato-oligarch","tag-john-mole","tag-literature","tag-travel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3834"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9490,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3834\/revisions\/9490"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24090"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mostlyfood.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}