It’s a topsy-turvy world when the deputy editor of the Spectator, a lady, is in Afghanistan, while the high life correspondent of the same magazine cowers in a Belgravia basement wearing full body armor and his Wehrmacht helmet. Obviously it should be the other way round, but now it’s a ...
On board S/Y Bushido off St. Tropez. My book party’s best line was Claus von Bulow’s, as told to Antony Beevor, Piers Paul Read, Paul Johnson, and Sir V.S. Naipaul, among the literary worthies who took the time to attend the poor little Greek boy’s launch at Brooks’s. “The last book ...
The block I’ve lived on these past 35 years is next to what no less a Manhattan authority like Woody Allen has called the most beautiful street in the city. This time of year the elms and poplar trees give my block a country feeling, which for me is as good as it gets. Country living in a city is ...
As I write, the political situation in Britain has many of her citizens bewildered. Despite the staggering deficits and economic shocks, the good people of Britain voted with their hearts rather than their heads. Not being a medium, I will not try and predict what will happen. My advice to loyal ...
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Let me take you away from politics for a bit, and bring you down here to Myrtle Beach, a down market Miami Beach but with much nicer and friendlier locals. There is even a Hemingway street—Papa came fishing around here—which would never happen in Miami. ...
New York. It’s up early every day before 8 a.m. and a brisk walk through the park before breakfast on the way to judo practice. A pale green washes the fields, daffodils pushing through the crusty earth. The joggers are out in force, young Jewish princesses struggling while getting in shape for ...
New York. April in the Bagel is as good as it gets. The girls are back in their summer dresses, people are crowding the outdoor cafes, and Central Park is an explosion of greens and pinks. Spring, as the song says, is busting out all over. And the taxman cometh—but not for 41 percent of ...
New York. If one was making 160,000 pounds per week—that’s more than a quarter of a million dollars every seven days—it would be safe to assume that one’s father would not choose to deal in cocaine for a living. Not necessarily, it seems, at least not in the John Terry family. The ...
New York. In the forty-five years I spent going to Annabel’s I never once heard anyone say “let’s go to Birley’s.” It was Annabel’s or Harry’s, or Mark’s, but never Birley’s. Now I read that Richard Caring, the man who bought Mark Birley’s joints, is trying to stop Robin Birley, ...
Turner Classic Movies, (TCM), the Ted Turner golden oldies network, saluted Louis Jourdan last week with a night of his movies, an evening that sure brought back memories. The highlight of the evening was the 1948 Letter From an Unknown Woman, based on a story by the tragic Stefan Zweig, a great ...
