‘Nobody would be happier than me if, in 50 years’ time, the Prime Minister, the Archibishop of Canterbury, the Poet Laureate, the Lord Chief Justice, the Regius Professor of History at Oxford and the editor of the Times were all non-white.’ So wrote Stephen Glover last week, just in time to further embarrass James Watson,
New York While on the tennis circuit from the mid-Fifties to 1965, it was an open secret that there was a lot of hanky-panky going on in the women’s locker rooms. Mind you, lady players were much older than they are now, but there were still some pretty young and impressionable girls competing who took
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg is as gruesome a fellow as they come. Mind you, he’s not as bad as Governor Eliot Spitzer, but then not every public official is a habitual body-waxer the way Spitzer is. The trouble with both men is that at various times one or the other appears not to have
New York Ain’t that a bitch! What else can one say? The way I figure it, it was 357 columns without a miss for the first seven years, then, after a Pentonville break, 1,275 straight until last week. The lawyers broke my streak, but then they would. And in my 30th year, too. Well, what
A letter from Jonathan Guinness, Lord Moyne. It’s about Mark Birley. ‘He was an artist, but a more unusual one than his father. Rather than turning out portraits and still-lives, he decided to turn everything around him into a work of art. So it all had to be perfect. He was as close as any
One tends to do a lot of reading on board a boat while sailing far from the madding yobs. Mostly books, thank God, as newspapers are hard to find until they’re ready to wrap fish. The Spectator, of course, is sent to wherever I am by my nice personal assistant, who buys it first thing
I simply can’t understand why so many Greek women resemble Scandinavians. Everywhere I look there are blondes — fat blondes, short blondes, hairy blondes, but blondes nevertheless. On board S/Y Bushido I simply can’t understand why so many Greek women resemble Scandinavians. Everywhere I look there are blondes — fat blondes, short blondes, hairy blondes,
On a beautiful, crisp Saturday morning on the first of the month I flew from Gstaad to the château de Dampierre, the duc de Luynes’s seat southwest of Paris. My old friend Jean-Claude Sauer was getting hitched for the fifth time, to a wonderful girl by the name of Brigitte — incidentally, the fifth Brigitte
OK. It is early 1964, the Profumo scandal has proved beyond reasonable doubt that English men can also be swingers (and with women, to boot), and my friend Yanni Zographos and I have just had a big win upstairs at Aspinall’s and are taking the circular inside staircase that connects Annabel’s with the casino. Suddenly
Gstaad Elie de Rothschild, who died a couple of weeks ago while on a shooting trip in Austria aged 90, once told me the story of a young Arab kebab seller who always parked his stand across from la Banque Rothschild on rue Lafitte. The Arab was asked for a loan by an acquaintance of
Here, at last, is the Taki plan to save George W. Bush’s presidency from the disaster it has been turned into by his neocon advisers. Yes, the Iraq war is a failure, but pulling out now will turn it into a geopolitical catastrophe of incalculable consequences. What Dubya needs is a great big fat win
On board S/Y Bushido I changed my mind about going to Capri. Apparently no heterosexuals are allowed on the island during August, so I turned to starboard and headed for Sardinia. The last time I was there I was in my early fifties, my children were in school, and I was running after someone who
On board S/Y Bushido Sailing away from St Tropez, I felt a bit like Lot; I asked the wife to take one last look, but Alexandra, alas, remained unsalty and very much in command. Portofino was the next stop, probably the most beautiful of tiny ports anywhere in the Med, green and very much up
On board S/Y Bushido My closest friend Yanni Zographos, who died 11 years ago, had a system for picking up women with young children in tow. As he passed a mother pushing a pram he would announce to no one in particular, ‘Les jolies mamans font des jolies bébés…’ Starting in the summer of 1956,
On board S/Y Bushido Last Friday the 13th was not a good-news day. I was in Ibiza, sailing around, when the papers were brought in and I read about the death of my old and very good friend Nigel Dempster. Actually, it was a blessing. He had been suffering for years and every time I
Rome They changed the name of the most famous city in the world, and renamed the place Valentino, or so it seemed last weekend in the Eternal City. What can I say? I know nothing about fashion, except that I know a beautiful dress when I see one, but I do know a lot about
To the Carlton Club for an oversubscribed dinner moderated by Michael Binyon with Liam Fox and yours truly speaking about the Middle East. When my turn came I shyly pointed out that I was honoured to be invited because the usual subject I’m asked to discuss is Paris Hilton or jail. ‘Why don’t you do
When a lame-duck draft dodger pardoned a major crook and fugitive —along with his very own drug-dealing half-brother — American public opinion was righteously outraged. It was par for the course for Bill Clinton, but at least he didn’t saddle the country with anything worse than having to put up with a ghastly person like
I kissed a top FBI agent flush in the mouth while in my cups at Elaine’s last week, and lived to write about it. And it was a stolen kiss, at that. They’re the best kind, now that I’m old enough to see how corny a prelude to a kiss is at my age. I
Kent To this beautiful New England village near the New York–Connecticut border, home to the great designer Oscar de la Renta and his wife Annette, both very old friends of mine. Two even older friends, Reinaldo and Carolina Herrera, were already there, making it a perfect house party. The de la Renta house is a