Harvard man Russell Seitz has sent me an extraordinary present as an object lesson in ‘what a magazine should be in case you start another one’. The paper has yellowed and is dog-eared, pages are falling out and the print is faint. But the Transatlantic Review, Vol. 1, No. 1, dated January 1924, is a joy to behold. Mind you, we were already almost 100 years old when Ford Madox Ford first edited TTR in Paris. And that’s what I told my friend Russell.

Anyone who writes for or reads The Spectator is not likely to be impressed by other publications, but this does not include a posturing peacock from the BBC who recently spouted gibberish learned at university diversity courses at a Speccie reader. I bring up those dreaded three letters because Jeremy Clarkson has just written in his Sunday Times column about how he was prevented from entering a studio at the BBC – while employed by the corporation – because he was carrying a copy of The Spectator under his arm. The onanist-Marxist who barred him called the world’s number one weekly ‘extremist’. Clarkson should have warned him that excessive masturbation leads to Marxism and causes one to become hard of hearing. But because he is a gentleman, he did and said nothing.

Spectator or no Spectator, the Transatlantic Review was an impressive monthly. There were four poems by e.e. cummings, and two Cantos by Ezra Pound. It cost 50 cents and there were pieces by T.S. Eliot, Joseph Conrad and H.G. Wells. Best of all, TTR announced the debut of a young man who would edit the next issue, an American expatriate by the name of Ernest Hemingway. (Boy, oh boy! Don’t get me started.) But it has got me started. Papa was the only man I know of who read all his obituaries when he was presumed dead after his plane crash in Africa. Nobody, but nobody gets to read their obits. Papa did.

Ford Madox Ford was a difficult man: overweight, a bit smelly and rather tragic, but a great writer as they all had to be back then. Dining with Papa Hemingway at the Closerie des Lilas – a restaurant to which I first took a very young Alexandra Schoenburg in order to impress her with my Papa knowledge – Ford Madox Ford was asked by Papa what the definition of a cad was. ‘A cad is someone who is not a gentleman,’ answered Ford. ‘Is Ezra a gentleman?’ asked Papa. ‘Of course not, he’s an American,’ quipped Ford. Papa said he should have taken a swing at him but felt sorry for the smelly one. Mind you, bad smell or not, Ford wrote a brilliant novel, The Marsden Case, a superb study of technique and characterisation. It’s humorous and whimsical and very English.

I have no idea how long the Transatlantic Review lasted, but probably not too long, these things never do. All the contributors, however, went on to great things – Nobel prizes and the lot. Ezra Pound, a wonderful poet and teacher, ended up in jail for having backed the Duce.

When I founded the American Conservativeexactly 20 years ago, the main purpose of throwing lots of moolah away was to stop neocon plans to enrich themselves by going to war in the Middle East. The money may have been wasted because my primary purpose – to stop the war before it began – failed and failed miserably. But after five years, I gave the publication away for $1 and I hear it is now doing well. In fact, I am going to a celebration of its 20-year anniversary next month in Washington, where the now monthly has always been based.

One would think that, as founder-owner-columnist, I would be sitting pretty. If only. Editor Scott McConnell wanted to distance the magazine from Pat Buchanan, our partner and the reason thousands had subscribed before the first issue. But I put my foot down, hard. Then Scott found fault with one of my columns which advised male readers how to keep both a mistress and a wife happy. The column ran. It was hard paying the bills while watching long faces at the stuff I was writing. And the long faces belonged to hacks whose names were not exactly dropped by many, if anyone.

So, after five or so years, I took a dollar, started Takimag online, and gave it to my daughter who owns and runs it. And now I’m happy writing this column and a monthly one for Chronicles and that’s the end of my story about trying to put Rupert Murdoch out of business.

The start-up fever hit me after my father’s death, when I put up the moolah for a pictorial weekly called 1,000 Subjects. (It sounds much better in Greek: Hillia Themata.) It was a great success, so much so that every newspaper in Athens and every TV station produced an exact copy and soon put us out of business. I was in London chasing you-know-what and didn’t give a damn. And I was busy writing three columns a week for the Sunday Times, the New York Post and The Spectator. And partying hard every night. I sometimes wonder how I managed it. But now here’s some good news for the Barclays, Rothermeres and Murdochs: you can relax. I do not plan to start a new publication in the foreseeable future.