High life
Gstaad The staff are back and all is well, as they used to say long ago in faraway places. The…
High life
Gstaad Hippocrates is known as the father of Western medicine and he discovered and named a disease known as ‘micropoulaki’…
High life
Gstaad Let me begin with a salute to the winner of this year’s Sir Jimmy Goldsmith prize: Professor Neil Ferguson.…
High life
Gstaad When indolence becomes intolerable, remembrances of things past become a lifesaver. Charles Moore’s SpectatorNotes also helps. His recent…
High Life
As Cole Porter might have said, only second-rate people go on and on about their inner lives. Self-analysis, according to…
High Life
Gstaad So the days — and months — drift by. This once peaceful Alpine town is packed with rich refugees…
High life
Aristophanes was a comic genius long before the Marx Brothers, but he also gave good advice to the Athenians: stop…
High life
Look at it this way: we’re all doing Desert Island Discs nowadays, and unless you’ve got the bug, it’s a…
High life
Desperately boring times but very healthy ones. No parties, no girls, not too much boozing, lots of smoking and reading…
High Life
No use datelining any more, I’m here for the duration. Even the ski lifts have been ordered to close: chiuso,…
High life
Gstaad Rumours about the virus are flying around this village. First there was talk of a hotel being temporarily…
High Life
Gstaad I shoulda been a weatherman: no sooner had I announced snow to be a Gstaad rarity than it…
What makes Bloomie run?
This article is in The Spectator’s March 2020 US edition. Subscribe here. In that great movie Citizen Kane, Orson Welles makes it…
High Life
Gstaad It feels like a sepia-tinged melodrama, one directed by the great schlock master Sam Wood. Driving along the winding…
High Life
Gstaad I was not aware that there is a group of Spectatorfans who meet in French-speaking Switzerland. They contacted me…
High Life
Gstaad Lenin Moreno is in trouble, despite his very unchristian first name. For any of you unfamiliar with the name,…
High life
I find myself detached from mainstream culture. It started with the demise of nightclubs like Annabel’s and the arrival of…
High life
I was walking up St James’s and happy to be in London. For a change I was not rushing but…
High life
Did any of you know that most of the 20th-century monsters — Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Ceausescu, Duvalier, and even the…
Two books that made me forget everything else
Gstaad I’ve been hitting the books rather hard lately, the ritzy-glitzy crowd having gone the way of natural snow. There’s…
The Middle East for dummies
Gstaad The French have a saying: ‘Il n’y a rien de plus bête que le sourire du gagnant.’ In…
Why 2019 has been a wonderful year
I received my Christmas present earlier than usual. It was a message sent via The Spectator from a gentleman who…
My friend Margaret Thatcher
By the time you read this it will all be over, but will it? I’ve had a bad feeling all…
The TV show that rots young minds
How can I phrase it without sounding pompous? When very talented people dine together, it sometimes turns into a contest…
Prince Andrew and me
No use piling on where Prince Andrew is concerned. It’s a sorry business, and he’s not among the brightest either.…
