This Christmas our thoughts need to be with our fellow Christians who are being threatened in the Bible lands. No ifs or buts about it, they are being told either to join the Sunni-led opposition to Assad and renounce Christianity or die. After decades of protection by a secular-leaning dictatorship, Christians are being given ultimatums
New York I’m in an extremely happy state as I write this because a young Englishman flew over the ocean just to have lunch with me and ask for my daughter’s hand in marriage. This is how things used to be done, but alas no longer. I will not reveal his name until it happens
New York Nature is at her best right now, the leaves still holding, Central Park awash in golden browns and reds. I go there every morning, half a block away from home, and under a giant elm I put the creaky body through its paces. Twenty push-ups, 30 deep knee-bends, 25 kicks over a
You know you’re old when people start writing kindly about you. Especially when they are colleagues. First Jeremy Clarke, now Deborah Ross. Debbie could of course be spoofing — if you look down at your bag of popcorn you’ll miss me — but thank you very much anyway. When my new boat is ready there
Everyone’s doing it, so I might as well jump in too. After all, I knew so many of the people involved, including JFK and his widow Jackie, and — sorry for the name-drop — even the actor Rob Lowe who plays the slain president in the film that’s coming out for the 50th anniversary of
I suppose the secret of death is to choose not to expire the same day as famous people. I read in Lapham’s Quarterly that JFK, C.S. Lewis and Aldous Huxley all met with the man in the white suit on 22 November 1963. John Jay Mortimer, a friend of very long standing, died last week
New York Hot money from China, India, Russia and Singapore is pouring into London; hotter money from the same countries is flooding into the Bagel. London has become unaffordable for the average Joe around Kensington and Chelsea, as has the West Village in downtown New York. Well, unaffordable is relative. There is a delicate social
If, according to a Viennese wit, psychoanalysis is the disease that calls itself the cure, then Steve Cohen’s deal with the US government is the highway robbery that calls itself justice. In brief: Steve Cohen is a bald Wall Street hedgie whose $18 billion fund, SAC, has scored Madoff-like returns over the past 20-odd years.
New York He came from a wealthy background but was always in trouble. His parents were not particularly religious, but nevertheless insisted that little Jimmy read the Scroll of Torah and grow up to be a good Jewish boy. You can imagine their horror when they found naked pictures of Hedy Lamarr and Brigitte Bardot
New York Libyans are among the most civilised people on earth. When a Russian hooker (I assume) killed a Libyan Air Force officer, a mob stormed the Russian embassy seeking revenge. They failed, but not for lack of trying. This time last year, another mob murdered the American ambassador and three others in a similar
New York The trouble with driving into the city is nostalgia. Manhattan Island looms into view and it still has the same effect of wonderment as it did long ago. Once walking the streets, however, reality sets in with a bang. And it is a bang! Manhattan is one big building site, cement mixers and
Gstaad The Swiss canton of Ticino is holding a referendum on a burka ban, and it is about time, too. Burka, niqab, it’s all Arabic to me, although I understand first hand how deep-seated the hatred of women is in Arab countries and that men wish to cover them up. Funnily enough, when you see
Gstaad Why are hacks scared to state the obvious? In Britain the excuse is the strict libel laws. But in America? To win a libel case over there one has to prove malice aforethought, and I don’t know many journalists who would admit it and go down the Swanee. Take the case that has been
To London for a brief visit to meet Spectator readers, as nice a reason as I can think of for getting on an airplane, except for an assignation with Rebecca Hall, my latest obsession among the fairer sex. Our digs in Old Queen Street remind me a bit of my schooldays, not that The Spectator’s
I used to see him in El Morocco, the most famous nightclub of its era during the late Fifties and early Sixties. He was a very handsome man, beautifully tailored and with impeccable old-fashioned manners, and a heavy drinker. Wine, champagne and cognac were his drinks, and vodka later in the night. Although invited to
Gstaad I’ve met Stephen Fry twice in my life, both times long ago. The first time at a dinner given by the then editor of The Spectator, Dominic Lawson, in London, and the second time in a restaurant in New York with the writers Jay McInerney and Brett Easton Ellis. The first time I was
Sultry August days and nights, with the gift of privacy an added bonus. In summer the village contains the die-hards, the locals and a few tourists. Bucolic freedom, fresh air and sunshine were once anathema — foul-smelling, airless dives like New Jimmy’s were the real McCoy — but now the sound of bells on roaming
Just before I left Gstaad for the Greek islands I went to dinner at Eugenie Radziwill’s, whose other guests included the great Barry Humphries and his wife Lizzie, and a couple I had never met before but whose name rang a distant bell, John Sutherland. The bell turned out not to be so distant, the
On board the Weatherbird off the Peloponnese The old girl groans and creaks as we tack time and again, the breeze right on the nose as we negotiate the turquoise coastline. She’s gaff-rigged and good upwind, the only annoyance being the ubiquitous speedboats driven by fat Greeks who come by for a look-see. From my
Porto Heli I am standing on the deck of a 100ft schooner that was built in Normandy in 1931 by Gerald and Sara Murphy, the golden American couple who invented the south of France as a summer playground and who were in the forefront of artistic and literary Parisian life of the time. More important,
