High life
An audience with the Pope
Perception and reality, truth and falsehood, black and white; nowadays the salivating chattering classes don’t know their arse from a…
My faux pas at the Duke of Beaufort’s bash
A letter from a reader in South Africa mentions that the writer’s father insisted a white dinner jacket was permissible…
The joy of a Greek summer
Some jerk know-nothing writes in an unreadable American newspaper that Greece is back — Athens, actually. He would, he’s an…
Wild flowers and mountain peaks are no substitute for a pretty woman
Gstaad The pastoral heaven of this place can get very dull during the summer months. Green hillsides, neat farmsteads, pleasing…
My marriage secret? I’m a faithless husband, but a good one
This was a real surprise, and on my birthday (11 August) to boot: a grown man, whose parents I used…
The case for bringing back feudalism
Gstaad I need it like Boris needs a bleach job. Another birthday, that is. Birthdays tend to make your life…
Amazon and Facebook: the twin evils of our age
They used to say that the primary function of a boat was to be beautiful. I suppose that is why…
Sailing past the charred eastern coast of Greece
On board S/Y Puritan I’m sailing off the charred eastern coast of Athens where so many died last week,…
The books and novelists I have read
Reading is the best antidote to debauchery I know of, and I’ve been hitting the books lately. History mostly. Once…
Watch out, London: I might be moving back
New York I am seriously thinking of moving back to London. The family insists on it. New York, they say,…
Why I am not drinking for the rest of the year
What a week this has been! What a great mood I’m in! Why, it’s almost like being in bed… with…
The limitations of left-wing hacks
Oh, to be in England, and almost die of heat after the Austrian Alps. Yes, Sarah Sands was right in…
Is it time to move to Austria?
Schloss Wolfsegg I was watching two very old men slowly approaching the open doors of the Pilatus airplane I…
The Bible’s #MeToo problem
New York I write this on my last day in the Bagel, and it sure is a scorcher, heat and…
Here’s why not to go to the Hamptons
New York The summertime exodus is upon us. The Hamptons are overflowing with mouth-frothing groupies looking for celebrities, and the…
50 years after Bobby Kennedy’s murder, the ‘deep state’ still reigns supreme
New York This week 50 years ago saw the assassination of Robert Kennedy, a man I met a couple…
Were all those young lives lost at Normandy in vain?
I’m back in New York and digesting the five glorious days spent in Normandy. What was the fighting all about,…
Dispatch from Pegasus Bridge, Normandy
Pegasus Bridge, Normandy We’re taking morning coffee at the Café Gondrée, which skirts the bridge. It still belongs to…
In praise of the Wehrmacht
Omaha Beach, Normandy I am standing in a German cement bunker having walked through a large gaping hole caused by…
Did Jared Kushner punish Qatar because of a building on Fifth Avenue?
New York Talk about high life this is not. I smelled a rat long ago, but then the scent got…
The rise – and rise – of Trump Derangement Syndrome
New York ‘What do we do with these men?’ thundered a New York Times headline. It was followed by a…
Fascism isn’t rising, but bien-pensant hysteria certainly is
Benito lives! The Blackshirts are here. Fascism is on the march — at least according to Madeleine Albright, secretary of…
It is a sin to die in the Land of the Depraved
New York Remember when the internet, Twitter, Facebook and other such useless gimmicks were supposed to usher in an era…
Circe has been recast as the girl next door – it’s a sign of the times
When poor old battered Odysseus landed on Circe’s island having lost all his ships (except his flagship) when he tangled…
In The US of A, it’s a woman’s, woman’s, woman’s world!
New York If Albanian television had shown the programme CBS did last week — with a woman who has sex…
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