Throw the Bums Out

Not that I had any doubts about how pig-headed, stubborn and ungrateful George W. Bush is, but confirmation of it never hurts. A friend of long standing revealed to me how Brian ...

Insulting His Holiness

The French ambassador to London who caused a furor about eight years ago when he referred to Israel as “that shitty little country,” was demoted to Algeria almost immediately. ...

Summer Days

We had a preview of sultry August here last week, with temperatures going as far up as 93° Fahrenheit in Central Park, filled to the brim by girls in their summer dresses, and ...

The Path of the Warrior

The hardest thing in the world for an athlete is to get out of bed in the morning. Show me a man who jumps out of bed and I’ll show you someone who has never trained for top ...

Mr. Rat Goes to Washington

A recent profile in a New York glossy described him as a member of Wall Street aristocracy, a man to whose parties the rich and powerful trip over themselves to attend, a ...

Color Theory

I crossed the river last week and went into the heart of darkness. Unlike Conrad’s hero, it took me about 15 minutes by train, and there I was, right in the midst of a city ...

Oh Boy!

NEW YORK—‘Lock up your daughters! Is the world ready for Taki Jr?’ This was the New York Observer headline, followed by: “Meet the only son of the world’s ...

Manhattan Memories

NEW YORK—Ah, finally in New York, the city of superlatives, as they say, the most diverse metropolis ever. I suppose no one has ever said it better than Jan Morris in her ...

Climate of Fear

So, one more winter season is kaput, the best snow conditions in 50 years gone the way of all things. Like the song says, referring to a girl, every time I say goodbye to the ...

Alpine Adventures

It’s past midway in March and the slopes still don’t have that used-up look which comes by the end of February. No gritty slush, just beautiful pure powder tracked ...

Fear of the Smear

I’ve said it before and will say it again: Fear of the smear is the Israeli lobby’s chief weapon. Here’s Charles Freeman Jr’s., Obama’s choice for a ...

Playing Host to the Enemy

Thirty years ago this week my daughter was three and my son had not been born. I had left Gstaad for gloomy, strike-ridden, non-stop power cuts London, and the mother of my ...

The Great Vassilis

Vassilis Paleokostas is the Arsène Lupin of the Olive Republic, aka Hellas or Greece. He is by profession a bank robber, known for his impeccable manners but unfortunate jowly, ...

Swiss Seductions

Nicola Anouilh is the only son of the great French playwright Jean Anouilh—more than 70 plays, including Antigone, Becket and La Sauvage—and a close friend since Paris in the ...

Love and War

At Easter 1215, a young Tuscan married woman innocently flirted in public with a man not her husband. He flirted back just as innocently, and then things got out of hand. A ...

Marked Men

Last week I ventured down to Geneva for a meeting with my banker, a gentleman of the old school who did not get carried away by Bernie Madoff’s siren songs. To the contrary, he ...


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