High life
Succession gets the rich and powerful all wrong
They have stepped into the pop-culture spotlight via the HBO hit Succession, a hatchet job on the very rich and…
I’d pick the Vero Beach retirement home for old ladies over Annabel’s
Around 20 or so years ago I had a point for match point on a perfect grass court at Fort…
I miss life before Big Tech
Do any of you remember the time when everything took place on the terraces and in outdoor cafés? Before everyone…
I was the next Truman Capote
It’s nice to be back in London, and Glebe Place is a delight. Mind you, it’s not the mansion I…
I loved prison
Memories for me are like beautifully edited copy: all cleaned up and retaining only the good parts. The wife tells…
The folly of American imperialism
Gstaad Mercedes Benz heir Mick Flick and I have been friends for more than half a century. We both married…
My literary heroes have led me astray
Gstaad Good manners aside, what I miss nowadays is a new, intelligent, finely acted movie. Never have I seen…
The Swiss are united by a common cause — making money
Gstaad When Gerald Murphy and Cole Porter discovered the French Riviera as a summer resort during the early 1920s, the…
Why is an Athens paper going after my old friend King Constantine?
Gstaad It seems to be open season on the royals, starting with Prince Andrew and the charges against him by…
The Olympics have become a celebration of human frailty
Coronis Embracing one’s vulnerability seems to have replaced the higher, faster, stronger ethos of the Olympics. The very frailty that…
An elegy on yachting
Patmos A very long time ago I wrote in these here pages that spending a summer on the Riviera or…
The joys of uninhabitable islands
Isle of Patmos Two hundred years ago last March, the Greeks rose up against the hated Turks who had occupied…
In praise of Patmos
Patmos I’m in Patmos with four grandchildren, two children, and a wife. I know, I know, it sounds very lower–middle-class…
A brief history of harlots
I write this as a follow-up to last week’s essay on muzzling after making whoopee. I’m on my way to…
How to have an affair
Gstaad After six-and-a-half months apart, I had no trouble recognising my wife. Out she came on to the driveway to…
The art of Dolly Parton’s bra
New York I hope this is my last week in the Bagel. I plan to fly first to Switzerland and…
A nicer side of Nero
New York I haven’t felt such shirt-dripping, mind-clogging wet heat since Saigon back in 1971. The Bagel is a steam…
In praise of chastity
New York It’s party time in the Bagel, or at least private party time. Yours truly is an extra man…
Why night-clubbing in New York is a risky business
New York The acerbic writer Gore Vidal was once asked which period of history he would choose to have lived…
New York resembles a war zone
New York The Big Bagel is getting so bad that even the baddies are demanding the fuzz do something. As…
I can finally spill the beans about Halston and Princess Margaret
New York Already on your idiot box via Netflix is a mini-series about a man who also used one name,…
Why Mick Jagger is an insult to rock
New York Orthodox Easter Sunday came late in May this year, and I spent it at an old friend’s Fifth…
The school that made an American century
New York With the Karamazovian hangover now only a weekly occurrence, the healthy life rules supreme. Well, most of the…
The unsavoury truth about American sport
New York What follows has been covered ad nauseam, but I wonder why people were surprised at the planned breakaway…
The dying art of sports commentary
Taki 3 July 2021 9:00 am
Wimbledon is here at last, after its absence in 2020. What struck me watching the French Open on television a…