Greece is a small beautiful country in the southeastern part of Europe, a place of jasmine, bougainvillea, mimosa, cypresses, olive trees, pines, oregano, sage, and thyme; sand, rock, and the bluest and cleanest water on earth. It was the birthplace of (selective) democracy, philosophy, Attic ...

When the Germans smuggled arguably the world’s most evil man into Russia 100 years ago, they did not imagine the harm they were springing on the human race. Once Lenin had prevailed, he decided to forge a new consciousness, a New Man, as the Bolshies called it, one that would overcome “the ...

One of my many regrets is that when I was young and on the tennis circuit, I played as a man. I had a crush on Margaret Osborne duPont, an older player who won numerous Wimbledon and U.S. national doubles titles, and the very pretty Karen Hantz, a Wimbledon singles winner, not to mention the Buding ...

As Jacob Rees-Mogg said in a different context, a happy birthday at my age is a terminological inexactitude. I needed the birthday I had last week like a hole in the head, to coin a brand-new expression. Mind you, the miasma of misinformation that deals with maturity never fails to depress. The ...

Greece is jasmine, bougainvillea, mimosa, cypresses, olive trees, pines, oregano, and sage; rock, sand, wine, fruit, and the bluest and cleanest water in the Med. The Peloponnese has the nicest, most welcoming, most generous of people, none more than my host and hostess at their private island, ...

I’ve stayed far away from the new barbarians with their choppers, tanklike cars, home theaters on board, and fridge-shaped superyachts that terrorize sea life. In fact, dolphins escorted us into Kyparissi, a tiny village on the eastern Peloponnese sixty kilometers from Sparta, my grandmother’s ...

I am surfing along the Cycladic islands on a 125-foot classic that was launched in 1929 by John Alden and has remained among the most beautiful sailing boats ever: Puritan. Everything on board is original, including the MoMC, my two grandchildren, and my son. I boarded her at Porto Heli, where the ...

I switch personalities at Spectator parties, depending on who the guests are: For our readers’ tea party, I am a warm and gracious semi-host, swigging scotch but graciously answering questions about my drinking, love life, and writing habits. For our summer Speccie spree, I turn into a ...

I was going through my paces in Hyde Park, sweating out the booze, raising the heartbeat with short wind sprints, keeping my mind off the weekend’s debauchery and the ensuing Karamazovian hangover. I then sat down on a bench and took off my sweaty polo shirt, opened The Daily Telegraph, and took ...

A funny thing happened on my way to lunch last week. I opened the Daily Mail and read a few snippets about the Camilla-Charles saga by Penny Junor, stuff to make strong men weep with boredom, but then a certain item caught my eye: “Camilla and the Queen finally met in the summer of 2000, when ...