Taki's Daily Blog
NEW YORK--When I heard about it, my own inchoate feelings were confused. A party for Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi, and the caller was Nat Rothschild, son of Lord Rothschild, a major donor to Jewish causes and Israel. What in Mohammed’s name was going on here? Nat Rothschild is no stranger to England thanks to his by now famous … [Read More]
NEW YORK--Arletty was a great French star of the silver screen during the Thirties and Forties, but she was also known for a few outspoken apophthegms about having sex with a German officer during the occupation. ‘If you hadn’t let them in, I wouldn’t have slept with him,’ and the better known, ‘My heart is French, but my arse is international.’ … [Read More]
NEW YORK--Election nights in the Bagel were always spent at 73 East 73rd Street, in Bill and Pat Buckley’s house, more often than not described as palatial by eager-to-please gossip columnists. In reality it was a fine New York maisonette, better suited for entertainment rather than cosy living, the latter reserved for their tiny and warm Connecticut house. Alas, both Bill … [Read More]
I want to make something very, very clear. This column’s review of the autobiography of Cheeta, Tarzan’s chimpanzee, has absolutely nothing to do with the man who just got elected to the White House last month. Cheeta’s opus was published in Britain two months ago (Fourth Estate, 336 pages) and has become a runaway best-seller. Is it a spoof? Obviously, but … [Read More]
NEW YORK--Back in the summer of 1960, a married Hollywood actress and her friend, a Hollywood wife, came to the south of France and met a randy 23-year-old who showed them around the place. The actress was the sexy Janet Leigh, then married to Tony Curtis, and her beautiful friend was Jean Martin, whose hubby was Dean Martin, while the randy … [Read More]
New York America’s diminished intellectualism has made this interminable election period as boring as a Nat Rothschild Corfu party for respectable folk. Part of the problem is that presidential candidates try ‘to reach out to younger voters’, hardly an admirable goal as demographic researchers have gone the way of TV programmers, targeting young morons whose Facebooks comprise 90 per cent of … [Read More]
The story so far: Old Blighty has been hit by a scandal of major proportions. People in high positions met in princely places and discussed matters not supposed to be talked about even on a yacht. In brief: Nat Rothschild, son of Lord (Jacob) Rothschild, is a partner in certain ventures of Oleg Deripaska, the richest of Russians and the sleaziest … [Read More]
NEW YORK--“Oligarchs brace for a downturn,” screams a New York business headline, a fact that sends me rushing to buy hankies, now selling at a premium at every corner store. Bloomberg News calculates that the richest 25 Russian crooks on the Forbes list have lost a collective $230 billion since last March. Which means that the 25 richest thieves have lost … [Read More]
Peggy Noonan was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and is a graceful essayist and good Catholic lady who happens to be a political conservative. I haven’t seen her in years but sometimes we exchange emails. She has written a book about how badly Americans need Patriotic Grace, the title of her opus, and I bought it just as the news of … [Read More]
In No Man of her Own, a 1932 black-and-white beauty, Clark Gable, playing a big-city shark tries to pick up a small-town librarian, the divine Carole Lombard, who was to become his wife later on. “Do your eyes bother you?” asks Clark. “No, not at all,” answers Carole. “Well, they sure bother me...” says Clark. What a great pickup line, graceful, … [Read More]