Poor Charlie

GSTAAD—I have not experienced such a long, continuous blizzard ever, and I’ve been coming here for 63 years. The ski lifts are closed, as are the hotels, and it’s been ...

Talk Show and Tell

GSTAAD—Some of you may have noticed I have not commented at all about the running soap opera and latest brouhaha concerning the Halfwit and Meghan Macbeth. That’s because I ...

Rome, Italy

When in Rome

GSTAAD—I was very sad to read of Rupert Hambro’s death. I didn’t know him well, but first met him long ago, along with his younger brother Rick, also gone, both ...

Hans-Joachim Marseille

Screw Algebra

GSTAAD—That’s all we needed in a great year, for The Great Gatsby’s copyright to expire. Some Fitzgerald wannabe has already cashed in with a prequel, and I’m certain the ...

The Barred of Avon

GSTAAD—The sun has returned, the snow is so-so, and exercise has replaced everything, including romance. What a way to go, after a wasted year that did wonders for my health, ...

Villefranche sur Mer

Gstaadios

GSTAAD—Good old Helvetia, I’m quitting her for the rainy but pleasant land of England, the cows beginning to resemble chorus girls and the village an alpine Colditz. Too much ...

Fetes Accomplis

GSTAAD—During these dark endless moments of lockdown, let’s take a trip down memory lane of real high life, of parties galore, of carefree times with girls in their summer ...

The Week That Perished

The Week’s Most Leveled, Bedeviled, and Disheveled Headlines ACRONYMS ARE ANTI-BLACKRONYMS WTF OMG SMH. It’s only February and already the people who do the stuff that makes ...

Aural Rape

GSTAAD—Imagine a beautiful, sexy woman, an Ava Gardner or a Lily James, with a wart at the end of her nose. It stands out double, whereas on an ugly countenance it would almost ...

Martha Gellhorn and Ernest Hemingway with unidentified Chinese military officers, Chungking (Chongqing),1941

Martha My Dear

GSTAAD—Martha Gellhorn was a long-legged blond American writer and journalist who became Papa Hemingway’s third and penultimate wife. She got her start when H.G. Wells, then ...

Trauma Drama

GSTAAD—Lord Belhaven and Stenton, a wonderful man and the quintessential English gentleman, died at 93 just before the end of the crappiest of years, but Robin was lucky in a ...

Travel Travails

GSTAAD—While Chekhovian boredom ruled supreme, the loss of my luggage brought instant relief. Anger beats boredom by a mile, especially when mixed with paranoia about a plot ...

What Is Racist?

While nonstop sermons aimed at whites to wash away their original sin of racism are on full throttle, spare a thought for poor old Jesse Jackson. The black activist who was ...

Back in the Bahamas

HARBOUR ISLAND, BAHAMAS—A singer named Shawn Mendes recently announced to millions of his fans that: “The truth is, it’s so hard to be human.” Gee whiz, poor Mendes, and I ...

On the Books

NEW YORK—I received a letter from a longtime reader, James Hackett, inquiring about books I am reading. It is not often that I get letters that delight me, as this one did, ...

Another Version of History

NEW YORK—There are times while living in this here dump of New York when I doubt if anyone’s heard of the word magnanimity. By the looks of it, no one among the left-wing ...


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