Why we should study literature, not science
Gstaad Who was it who said good manners had gone the way of black and white TV? Actually it was…
High life
Gstaad It is hard to imagine that we have reached the year 2022 and are still imposing completely irrelevant…
A brief history of the death of God
A few weeks after Friedrich Nietzsche bragged to an admirer that he had completed a ruthless attack on our Lord,…
America is a nation divided
New York Imagine a European country today in which a newspaper in its most populous city launches a mendacious project…
After a lifetime in nightclubs, now I party at home
New York It’s party time in the Bagel, and it’s about time, too. Good restaurants and elegant nightclubs are…
The Kushner conundrum
Gstaad I have two special girlfriends, Lynne and Fiona, the ladies who guard The Spectator’s entrance against the outraged #MeToo…
The joy of being cancelled
New York I’ve never met anyone called Othello, certainly not in Venice nor in Cyprus, but perhaps there are men…
I’ve been back one week and the good old US of A has never seemed more depressing
New York Don’t let anyone tell you the Bagel is worse off than Kabul, where three people were recently shot…
Lord Lucan, Joan Collins and the greatest dinner ever
There’s a narrow stretch of Chelsea, south of the King’s Road from Oakley Street to Ormonde Gate, that reminds me…
Michael Mailer’s new film is Chariots of Fire on water – and it’s great
New York I find most films nowadays as fascinating as a lengthy history of orthodontics but then I’m spoilt rotten,…
The poor are too busy trying to make a living to be angry about the global rich-poor divide
New York ‘The City of London is hiding the world’s stolen money’, screams a Bagel Times headline, as bogus…
Succession gets the rich and powerful all wrong
They have stepped into the pop-culture spotlight via the HBO hit Succession, a hatchet job on the very rich and…
I’d pick the Vero Beach retirement home for old ladies over Annabel’s
Around 20 or so years ago I had a point for match point on a perfect grass court at Fort…
I miss life before Big Tech
Do any of you remember the time when everything took place on the terraces and in outdoor cafés? Before everyone…
I was the next Truman Capote
It’s nice to be back in London, and Glebe Place is a delight. Mind you, it’s not the mansion I…
I loved prison
Memories for me are like beautifully edited copy: all cleaned up and retaining only the good parts. The wife tells…
The folly of American imperialism
Gstaad Mercedes Benz heir Mick Flick and I have been friends for more than half a century. We both married…
My literary heroes have led me astray
Gstaad Good manners aside, what I miss nowadays is a new, intelligent, finely acted movie. Never have I seen…
The Swiss are united by a common cause — making money
Gstaad When Gerald Murphy and Cole Porter discovered the French Riviera as a summer resort during the early 1920s, the…
Why is an Athens paper going after my old friend King Constantine?
Gstaad It seems to be open season on the royals, starting with Prince Andrew and the charges against him by…
The Olympics have become a celebration of human frailty
Coronis Embracing one’s vulnerability seems to have replaced the higher, faster, stronger ethos of the Olympics. The very frailty that…
An elegy on yachting
Patmos A very long time ago I wrote in these here pages that spending a summer on the Riviera or…
The joys of uninhabitable islands
Isle of Patmos Two hundred years ago last March, the Greeks rose up against the hated Turks who had occupied…
In praise of Patmos
Patmos I’m in Patmos with four grandchildren, two children, and a wife. I know, I know, it sounds very lower–middle-class…
A brief history of harlots
I write this as a follow-up to last week’s essay on muzzling after making whoopee. I’m on my way to…
