New York
High Life
The leaves are falling non-stop, like names dropped in Hollywood, and it has suddenly turned colder than the look I…
The wandering Jew
Stefan Zweig wasn’t, to be honest, a very good writer. This delicious fact was hugged to themselves by most of…
Tales from a strip joint
‘It’s not as bad as I thought it would be,’ said Norman Mailer to his wife, Norris Church, after reading…
High life
To the grand Herrera house on the upper east side of Manhattan for lunch in honour of Lord and Lady…
Un-Beaton
The odds were a hundred to one against him. Brought up in bourgeois Bayswater by genteel parents, Cecil Beaton was…
Autumn round-up
This has been an extraordinarily exciting fortnight, on and off stage. Premieres in anything from ice-skating to classical ballet, charismatic…
It was a wonderful town
I picked up this book with real enthusiasm. Who cannot be entranced by those 20 years after the second world…
Becoming Rothko
Mark Rothko was an abstract artist who didn’t see himself as an abstract artist — or at least not in…
High life
An intelligent letter from a reader, Stanislas Yassukovich CBE, warms my heart. It’s nice to know there are others as…
Real life
As the maître d’ ushered me into the packed restaurant, I leaned in close and intoned softly, so as not…
Barometer
Tough at the top The clocks on Big Ben were cleaned by abseiling window-cleaners. Some other big cleaning/painting jobs: —…
Portrait of the artist
In Dylan Thomas’s centenary year, Hilly Janes recalls her father’s friendship with the poet and his visits to the Boat House at Laugharne
Rise of the mayors
The power to effect real change may lie with dynamic city halls rather than ossified national governments
High life
New York Back to the mythic city, dreamed into existence by the movies long ago and instantly memorable, a visually…
Keeping up appearances
Shortly after I started working at Vanity Fair in the mid-1990s, I suggested to my boss Graydon Carter that I…
The mask of truth
Siri Hustvedt’s new novel isn’t exactly an easy read — but the casual bookshop browser should be reassured that it’s…
Long life
The new mayor of New York, who despite his name (Bill de Blasio) claims Irish ancestry, is boycotting this month’s…
Man of steel and glass
Modern Architecture, capitalised thus, is now securely and uncontroversially compartmentalised into art history, its bombast muted, its hard-edge revolutions blurred…
Unmade in Chelsea
Once below a time (to quote the man himself) the bloated poet Dylan Thomas slouched back to New York’s Chelsea…
High life
New York I’m in an extremely happy state as I write this because a young Englishman flew over the ocean…
High life
New York Nature is at her best right now, the leaves still holding, Central Park awash in golden browns…
High life
New York Hot money from China, India, Russia and Singapore is pouring into London; hotter money from the same countries…
High life
New York The trouble with driving into the city is nostalgia. Manhattan Island looms into view and it still has…
