A letter to the editor from Frederick Forsyth takes me to task. Enough about Gstaad is its message. OK, but only because it’s you, Freddy baby. Instead, I will treat you to a rivet-by-rivet description of tattooed oiks and thick-ankled slappers puking their guts out in urine-drenched Manchester pubs, my one thousand and one nights
In the American Conservative, Leon Hadar asks, ‘Is it possible that a homeless and failed artist from Vienna, a paranoid gangster from Georgia, and a paedophile and drug addict from Beijing led to the ruin of millions and millions of lives?’ Hadar is reviewing a book by William Pfaff which he compares to drinking a
Gstaad I’ve been wondering how people like Tony Blair, Michael Howard and assorted busybodies would react if some concentration-camp guard sued Ken Livingstone for comparing him to a British journalist. I don’t think there are any German ones around, but surely there are gulag concentration-camp guards still alive and kicking, and most of them are
Gstaad Far be it from me to give advice to the Queen — last I heard she is one wise and experienced lady — but she’s dining this week with the 13-member IOC evaluation commission, which is charged with judging the various bids of cities trying to land the 2012 Olympic Games. Feign sickness, Ma’am,
Gstaad Sir Roger and Lady Moore braved a snowstorm but made it on time driving from Crans-Montana. Sir Peter Tapsell flew in from Britain, snow or no snow on the runways. The poor little Greek boy had to travel less than a mile, but was the last to get there. While Gstaad was being covered
Gstaad Nothing like the flu to remind one of life’s priorities. It’s health, stupid, with everything else a very distant second. No woman, not even Ashley Judd or Jemima Khan, could get me out of bed and into theirs with a 40
New York Lest there be some of you that missed it, a lifelong dirty dealer is walking around us free as a bird, and there’s nothing any of us who don’t flout the law can do about it. Let’s start the new year right and not be beastly to Mr Marc Rich. He is the
I suppose winning the Nobel Prize for curing cancer would get me more brownie points, but being the man who took Jemima Khan to High Table at Trinity College, Oxford, feels almost as good. She’s something, that Jemima. Thin but voluptuous, with legs that remind me of Marlene Dietrich’s gams in Morocco, that black-and-white oldie
Back in London for a debate at the Intelligence Squared Forum on the motion that monogamy is bad for the soul. I am arguing against it, as well I should. Had I not wasted my life and time chasing women non-stop, I could have been a contender, a somebody. As the 20th century’s greatest philosopher,
New York With the exception of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg — whose circle of defenders and sympathisers have just come together at the Museum of Jewish Heritage here for a new documentary celebrating their martyrdom — there is no greater Cold War icon than Alger Hiss, the patrician, high-ranking state department official who passed government
Like everyone else, I might as well get my two-cents in while the story’s still hot. About the sainted one’s problems with Liverpool, that is. What a crock! I might be accused of pandering, but to hell with them. When I went over the top about the Puerto Rican parade some time ago, it looked
Boston The Boston, Melbourne, Oxford Universities Conversazioni on Culture is a stimulating series of talks which takes place every year in one of the three venues. This year’s topic was ‘Power Without Responsibility: Was Kipling Right? The Press.’ Yours truly was invited to be one of the speakers alongside worthies such as Andrew Roberts, Kenneth
New York Except for the people, this is a wonderful time of year to be in the Bagel. Summer’s blistering heat has gone the way of Britain’s Davis Cup hopes — tiny Austria, using natives, has just eliminated big-bully Britain, which was using Gurkhas like Rusedski — the days are getting shorter but crisper, and
Athens The first gold medal goes to The Spectator for last week’s leader ‘First gold to Greece’. My country had been unfairly maligned by Western hacks —those pure sportsmen who gracefully hurdle over bar stools while busy filing phony expense accounts — but (with fingers crossed) Hellas has been vindicated. Whoever wrote the leader will
Gstaad Sorry to bore you, but more about Poles. In all the years I’ve been writing ‘High life’, no column of mine has had such a positive response as ‘Pole position’, of three weeks ago, which is a record for yours truly. Poles in general and Taki in particular are not everyone’s favourites, but this
On board S/Y Bushido I know, I know, it’s a bit much, filing from one’s yacht — but, what the hell, it’s not every day that hacks own boats. One thousand, one hundred square metres of sail, 125ft-long overall, steel hulled and very fast downwind, she is my latest pride and joy, now that I’ve
Athens The birthplace of selective democracy is looking better than it has since the Fifties, when the modernists took over. The ancient capital will be ready on 13 August, the Games will take place, and the American basketball freaks will stay home, which is the best news I’ve had since Bill Clinton was impeached. (His
New York I was a bit tough on American women last week, but when I sat down to write I hadn’t as yet heard of Michael Bergin. Now I have, and I take everything back. Give me a shrill woman talking about whitening her teeth any day. Bergin is the lowlife who has just published
New York And now for Rosebud, the single childhood incident that will illuminate us as to why Saddam did what he did. His was the kind of life Freudian complexes are made of, except for the fact old Saddy had no complexes. If I were to guess, I imagine some North American Man Boy Love
New York Boy, oh boy! The Christmas double-issues come quickly now. Once upon a time the run-up to the holidays was unending, with non-stop parties up to the final explosion on New Year’s Eve. No longer. Now Christmases come and go quicker than you can say tempus fugit, which in a way is better for