High life
The battle for decency has been lost
An intelligent letter from a reader, Stanislas Yassukovich CBE, warms my heart. It’s nice to know there are others as…
We're still repeating the mistakes of the first world war
The time-honoured saying that England’s great battles have been won on the playing fields of Eton is a lot of…
I felt so awful I almost prayed that we would crash
This is about life up high. Two weeks ago The Spectator had that rapscallion and mischief-maker Peter McKay writing about…
My ghosts of Athens; a shooting and a royal wedding
Athens This grimy semi-Levantine ancient city has its beauty spots, with childhood memories indelibly attached. There is a turn-of-the-century apartment…
What is to be done about a world where everything is for sale?
Next time you read about an auctioneer’s gavel coming down on a $150 million painting bought by some flunkey representing…
The Olympic spirit may be dead in Ibiza, but at least the hookers are world-class
Ibiza This island is the Spanish equivalent of the Greek sex rock of Mykonos, except its waters are murkier, its…
Come back Aristotle Onassis – all is forgiven
Back in the very early Sixties there was an uninhabited islet off the west coast of Greece by the name…
You can't make friends with Uncle Sam and survive for long
Can somebody tell me when America last got it right? Uncle Sam’s track record in selecting leaders in faraway places…
Six decades and two chat-up lines
Gstaad In this freewheeling Swiss village of the 1950s, the unconventional was the norm and monumental drinking commonplace, but the…
How dare they sell the beaches where I played as a child
Porto Cheli Nothing is moving, not a twig nor a leaf, and I find myself missing the cows, the mountains…
Greece is calling – three more years and then I move south
Porto Cheli I have been thinking about my children and my own strange boyhood as I gaze up at the…
Even Switzerland is turning lefty. Am I going to have to move to Wyoming?
Gstaad I am looking out of my window at the green landscape and forested mountains rising beyond, as peaceful a…
My love for that heroic country Poland
One event I regretted missing on my last visit to London was a party at the Polish Club, which has…
I’ve just met the future Mrs Taki — again
Gstaad I write this on 14 July, France’s big day and the 25th anniversary of my father’s passing. He died…
With a hangover like this, my soul is ready to be saved
Island of Rhodes When I’m on the water, I feel I was born to it. Yachting has always been a…
I think I just went to the greatest ball in history
To Fort Belvedere for a ball that most likely will discourage any more balls because of its brilliance and perfection.…
After 100 years, the mess we made of the Middle East is coming full circle
When I hear the words Sykes-Picot I more often than not feel like punching an Englishman or a Frog —…
Coming soon: my engagement to Kristin Scott Thomas
As everyone who has ever joined a club knows, Pugs is the world’s most exclusive one, its members ranging from…
Like Murdoch, I'm an old man with an eye for beauty. But Wendi Deng? Seriously?
Gstaad A slight bump at 30,000 feet concentrates the mind, as the good Dr Johnson said about an appointment with…
The EU is the greatest danger since Uncle Joe
Last week in the Bagel, and then London here I come. As I write, hundreds of thousands of Jews are…
Why don’t any of the sisterhood take up the banner of poor Noor Hussain’s wife?
New York Here’s a question for you loyal readers: if a hubby asks his wife to cook him a hearty…
Being the father of the bride has matured me – as I discovered in the nightclub afterwards
So the wedding of my little girl to Andy Bancroft Cooke went off without a hitch, a wonderful ceremony in…
The First Amendment guarantees the right of free speech
Like the late Christopher Hitchens who only discovered his Jewish roots once he had moved to New York in the…
The accidental wit and wisdom of Samuel Goldwyn
For some of you younger readers the name Schmuel Gelbfisz will not ring a bell. Yet back in the Thirties…
I’m off the booze. My daughter insists that I walk her down the aisle – not vice versa
The vicissitudes of getting old are linked to the mystical innocence of childhood as one daydreams the precious time away.…
