I never thought I’d see it, a beauty winning a major title, at least not since the Williams sisters and the ghastly Maria Sharapova came on the scene. But there she was last weekend, an olive-skinned enchantress winning the French Open and charming everyone with her femininity and grace. If only Ana Ivanovic did not
Città di Castello, Umbria A few years before the end of the 19th century, King Leopold of Belgium summoned his favourite banker, Baron Lambert, for an intimate chat over lunch. ‘My dream is to have a little place in the sun,’ said the monarch to the banker. ‘Somewhere down south, where everyone runs around without
‘Is democracy on the march or is it in retreat?’ screams a headline in the Washington Times. The question was put to Condoleezza Rice last week, and I must say, for a little-to-show-for-it secretary of state, she answered very well: ‘Freedom does not advance on a steady trajectory — setbacks and detours should be expected…’
Is the opening sentence of a book, especially a novel, the most consequential, or is it just dressing for the feast to come? I’d say the former judging from A Tale of Two Cities, Moby-Dick, Pride and Prejudice, and my favourite, The Death of Manolete, by Barnaby Conrad. ‘In August, 1947, in Linares, Spain, a
New York From my kitchen window I have watched a little boy grow up to be a man. I live in what Americans, with great economy of expression, refer to as a brownstone, actually a townhouse. It is on 71st Street off Park Avenue. My father bought it for us 30 or so years ago,
I am heartbroken but for once it is not over a girl. I have to stay in the Bagel, hence missing The Spectator’s 180th anniversary party, Pug’s club’s first annual meeting in our new digs, Countess Bismarck’s dinner, Nick Scott’s shindig, and so on. Not having set foot in London in months, I was looking
New York So there I was, at the Waverly Inn, Graydon Carter’s little toy, which has been the hottest ticket in the Big Bagel for two years, when the booth next to mine filled up with young people, all of them scruffy and dressed like the homeless, their girls rather plain and some of them
New York It obviously came from above — the order, that is — because I have never seen such perfect temperatures and clearer skies than for the Pope’s visit. And this wonderful Pope, who believes in the strictest doctrine for the Church, was greeted by the faithful like a rock star, cheered and applauded everywhere,
New York Their memorials were held five days apart, each in one of Manhattan’s most hallowed venues, each one attended by more than 2,000 worshipping fans, both attracting A-list mourners as well as the poor and the humble. William Buckley and Norman Mailer had great send-offs, the former, as a devout Catholic, in St Patrick’s
New York I read in the New York Times that one of the four persons who apparently operated the escort service that undid Eliot Spitzer, the ex-governor of the state of New York, was one Cecil Suwal, 23, ‘a graduate of an élite New Jersey prep school’. Bad news travels fast and I was informed
Sartre was a far greater fornicator than philosopher, but he did come up with the greatest truism of them all: ‘Hell is other people.’ (The last line in one of his plays.) Mind you, a Greek savant has bettered him by proclaiming Hell is other people speaking on their mobiles inside an aeroplane. Yes, it
Gstaad There’s fear and loathing around here, and it has nothing to do with lousy snow conditions. Fear that UBS, the biggest Swiss bank, is in trouble, loathing for those whose greed brought this about. ‘Reckless’ is now a synonym for ‘banker’ as the financial system teeters on the brink. UBS has denied it is
It would take the greatest bloodhound reporter of all time to discover a person with a good word to say about Eliot Spitzer, the first man ever to bully Congress for an invite on bond insurance so he could meet with cutie-pie Ashley Alexandra Dupré in Room 871 the night before. When the crumbum finally
Around 15 years or so ago I was fast asleep late in the morning when I got an ear-splitting telephone call from Greece. It was Vicki Woods, a Telegraph writer, and she sounded anxious. If memory serves, and it does because she subsequently wrote a piece about it which made it into The Week, the
Who the hell does David Cameron think he is to tell Benji Mancroft to think more before opening his mouth? Did Cameron think when he asked us to hug a hoodlum? I’ve been lucky and never had to go to a hospital in the UK but, unless I was bleeding to death and needed emergency
Taki lives the High Life An interesting week, to say the least. A Carlton Club speech on multiculturalism which didn’t quite come off, a kidnapping in Gstaad, a party in London to celebrate David Tang’s knighthood, the mugging of John McCain by the man who committed adultery with Emma Gilbey, a great Pug’s club lunch
Why do children lie? asks a boring headline in an even more boring Big Bagel magazine article. According to the bores who wrote it, children are encouraged to tell white lies, hence they get comfortable with being disingenuous, and insincerity becomes a daily occurrence. ‘Many books advise parents to just let lies go — they’ll
Gstaad ‘Let me put it in, just a little bit’ was known as the second biggest lie after ‘the cheque is in the mail’ and it comes to mind when the Archbishop of Canterbury asks for just a little bit of sharia law. Enough said. People far more qualified than me have already commented on
Gstaad In the good old days of the Cold War, Athenian hacks used to say that there were only two countries where secrets were safe: China and Greece. In the former nobody talked. In the latter everyone did, hence no one believed a word. I thought of the saying during a chic Gstaad dinner party
Gstaad The fat cats were all over Davos last week, greedy bankers, self-important bosses of publicly owned multinationals, craven hedge funders and shameless publicity-seekers such as Bono and others of his ilk mixing freely with Gordon Brown, Al Gore and Bill Gates. No, Carla Bruni did not attend, nor did Amy Winehouse, who had better