A Pretty Good Revenge

“Vengeance is mine,” is the Lord’s saying, but also the title of a best-selling Mickey Spillane trashy novel of the ’50s. The slaughter that’s taking place in the Middle East as I write this is all about vengeance, but then most wars are about revenge. In May 1946, in Tokyo, the American ...

Good Fellowes

Okay, you fans of such classics as Age of Innocence, House of Mirth, and Ethan Frome, Julian Fellowes is no Edith Wharton, but for the dregs of what’s left of society today, he’ll do. He’s a Brit, a funny little fellow—pun intended—whom I sat next to at a London gentlemen’s club ...

Gale Storm

Hat’s Off to the Morons

I spotted a tiny faux pas, as they say in the land of cheese and garlic, and only mention it for the follow-up. I was watching a black-and-white movie made in 1948 starring Gale Storm, a beautiful young American actress in her debut role, when in a scene she exits an elevator accompanied by three ...

Lt. Gen. Valin, Chief of Staff, French Air Force, awarding Croix De Guerre with palm to Col. James Stewart

Anonymity Wins the Day

Oh dear! A rift has taken place in Hollywood over the killings that are going on in Gaza as I write; mind you, it is a rare one because lefty Tinseltown speaks with one mind when it comes to politics. Conservative actors and executives over the hundred or so years that Hollywood has existed have ...

Bordering on Insanity

David Kaufman is an unknown writing protest letters to British newspapers against Elon Musk and the Fall of Rome. He equates the rise of the former with the demise of the latter. Losers like Kaufman tend to stretch things a bit in order to attract attention. I’m a Musk fan, but the reason I ...

Tales From the Crypto

From the horror that is Gaza to horror comedy here in the Big Bagel. Sam Bankman-Fried is on trial for stealing 8 billion smackers from investors, but as he has pleaded not guilty, I suppose I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. SBF, as I shall call him for the duration, is not burdened by ...

Benjamin Netanyahu

The Gaza Conundrum

A major in the reserves of the Israeli army, Nir Avishai Cohen, got it more right than all the blowhards pumping out hot air about Gaza all week: Love Israel, Support Palestine is the name of his book written and published last year, and in a newspaper article after the horrors had begun, he ...

Israel and Gaza - Iron dome rockets

The Present Tragedy

GSTAAD—My last days in good old Helvetia before heading for sunny London and grubby old New York. And they are beautiful days and crispy nights here while the bells are ringing. The cows and the goats are down from the heights, and they make for an improved atmosphere as the new rich have ...

Sam Bankman-Fried

My NBF

I had a good talk with my NBF, Owen Matthews, at the Spectator writers’ party, agreeing on the two subjects we discussed: Russia and women. I won’t exaggerate the enormity of our aggregate knowledge—and the way we have deployed it in our service especially where the fairer sex is ...

Jodie Foster

Ever Moore

Lord Moore and I go back a ways, more than forty-some-odd years. I clearly remember the first time we met at editor Alexander Chancellor’s office at The Spectator. I was called in and Alexander introduced me to a fresh 25-year-old-looking Charles, who had just been named foreign editor. “He ...