High life
Why Simone de Beauvoir is my kind of woman
New York A strange thing happened to me here in the Bagel last week. Having read the recent review…
What you can tell about a man from his choice of underwear
New York It’s Indian summertime and the living is easy. There hasn’t been a cloud above the Bagel for two…
An elegy for New York
New York The master of the love letter to New York, E.B. White, eloquently described the city as a place…
Why I prefer cows to humans
Gstaad The cows are coming down, the cows are coming down, and I’m off to the Bagel. My Swiss…
Remembering Tim Hoare – a man like no other
He was a Falstaff in his drinking and in his celebration of life, but his greatness lay in his friendships.…
My soulmate Brian Sewell
Romy Somerset is the sweetest, nicest young girl in London. She’s also my goddaughter and I remember, during her christening…
How to be a man
Gstaad I was reading in these here pages Julie Burchill’s review of Candace Bushnell’s Is There Still Sex in…
My jailhouse diet
Gstaad It’s written in the Declaration of Independence, so it must be true: the pursuit of happiness is an…
Another birthday has got me down, but the alternative is being dead
If it hadn’t arrived I’d be dead, but it was hardly welcome: another birthday — 38 years old on 11…
Standing on the Acropolis brings out the Greek in me
Athens I am struggling up the slippery marble steps of the Acropolis with the Geldofs and the Bismarcks. We gaze…
Chatting to Bob Geldof about Boris and Brexit
Coronis We are steaming on Puritan towards the private isle of Coronis for a long Pugs weekend and the…
No ‘cool’ people here: the joys of Serifos
Serifos He went away to fight and the war lasted ten years. He missed his wife but he didn’t worry…
Let’s choose our politicians by random selection
Athens Standing right below the Acropolis, where pure democracy began because public officials were elected by lot, I try to…
Coco Gauff won fair and square, but she played terrible tennis
Martina Navratilova has never been shy about telling it like it is. She came out when other athletes were hiding…
The death of free thought
Hold the presses, this is a world exclusive. A Boris ex I sat next to last week gave me the…
Nice men make terrible leaders
The Duke of Marlborough gave a toast last week that brought the house down during a Turning Point dinner for…
After the week I’ve just had will my liver ever recover?
Bellamy’s and Oswald’s are the two best restaurants in London. They are owned by two friends of mine — both…
Boris is the only one who can save the Tories
A lady once offered to go to bed with me if I could ensure that she would write The Spectator’s…
The joy of my grandson’s baptism
They were putting the finishing touches to the giant tent as I drove up to Schloss Wolfsegg after an hour’s…
The softer side of Hemingway
I didn’t like it, and then I did like it. But a writer’s job is to tell the truth, as…
My feud with Conrad Black
Goody goody gumdrops! The Donald has pardoned Lord Black and I couldn’t be happier. Conrad got a bum deal and…
The death of New York’s nightlife
New York This is my last week in the Bagel and I’m going to give it the old college…
A lament for the UK and the US
New York Here’s a question for you: if your wife, husband, girlfriend, boyfriend, toy boy even, lied repeatedly to…
Sebastian Flyte had nothing on me: memories of a misspent youth
Charlottesville is an enchanting Virginia college town graced by the neoclassical architecture of the university’s founder, Thomas Jefferson. I flew…