GSTAAD—Back in the good old days a funicular used to take skiers up, bucking all the way and at times stopping when the snowdrifts got too deep across the track. We used to wax our skis at every opportunity, deposit them in the baggage car, and ride the outdoor car. Most of us had a flask with ...

From my chalet high up above the village, I look up at the immense mountain range of the glistening Alps and my spirit soars. Even youthful memories receding into sepia cannot bring me down from the high. Mountains, more than the sea, can be exhilarating for the soul. Then I open the newspapers and ...

GSTAAD—One’s unpopularity for calling it a night diminishes in direct proportion to the severity of the next morning’s hangover. I was literally booed by Geoffrey Moore & Co. for asking the wife of a friend to drive me 200 yards to my chalet. Co., not Geoffrey, had other plans for the ...

I write this from a small village high up in the Swiss Alps, where I have just left the tiny police station with a warning: Arab women are permitted in the Swiss-German part of the country to totally cover their face and body. The Italian part of Switzerland has forbidden it, but I was unaware that ...

When I was young my recurring nightmare was that I would die and be reincarnated as a polo pony. I squeezed in lots of polo in the years I played, at least three matches per week, mostly in Paris, and I felt that polo ponies had the kind of deal the mass media is handing Trump as I write. I ...

When I saw an e-mail waiting from Lucy, the lady who has the unenviable task of editing my copy each week, I knew something was wrong. And sure enough it was, the bad news that my first editor in my beloved Spectator had died. Forty years, gone in a jiffy. It was back in 1977, and I had gone to ...

GSTAAD—The snows came tumbling down just as the camel drivers headed back to the Gulf. In fact, they never saw the white outdoor stuff. And a good thing it was, too. The outdoor stuff makes everything look so pretty, the glitzy types might be tempted to return. God forbid. And let them stick to ...

ATHENS—I can only sardonically ask whether it was worth it. To be executed after unspeakable torture without giving anything away—and for what? Fat, greedy, avaricious, and very rich Davos Man? Or those ignorant, self-indulgent, cowardly little twerps who demand “safe spaces” in ...

There are Dames and there are dames. Dame Vivien, an old friend, became one for her philanthropy. Dame Edna, the creation of yet another friend, was damed for her middle-class morality and upper-class pretensions. And now we have Dame Anna of Vogue, honored for affecting a faux aristocratic ...

GSTAAD—New Year’s Eve was a Rhapsody in Blue, with a clarinet glissando that promised joys to come, and the Gershwin downbeat not registering until 6 a.m. The hangover was, of course, Karamazovian, but who the hell cares? I am finally solid again, and even the flu I caught on the trip over is ...