It all began when PM Constantine Karamanlis named his old friend Mr. Zachopoulos as the general secretary of the Ministry of Culture. Zachopoulos, a fatty and rather short even for a Greek, was married, but began an affair with his secretary once ensconced in his powerful role. The secretary, too, ...
His original name was Battenberg, but his great uncle changed it to Mountbatten and his grandfather to Windsor. He is now Andrew Windsor, and his royal title is HRH Prince Andrew. He is the Queen of England’s second son, a spoiled, rather thick, toothy, and overweight golf fanatic whose wife ...
Back in 2004, traditional conservatives were faced with navigating between a Charybdis and a Scylla by the names of Bush and Kerry. On one side lurked something quite monstrous: a self-described conservative who fiddled as the federal government grew to obscene proportions and who allowed ...
I never thought I'd see the day where I would agree with anything Ted Kennedy had to say, but he hit the nail on the head when he finally admitted that the Clintons—because we will have a dual presidency if that woman gets elected—are not only demonizers of their opponents—any opponent, even ...
GSTAAD—The fat cats were all over Davos last week, greedy bankers, self-important bosses of publicly-owned multi-nationals, craven hedge-funders, and shameless publicity seekers such as Bono and others of his ilk mixing freely with Gordon Brown, Al Gore, and Bill Gates. No, Carla Bruni did not ...
GSTAAD—I’ve been watching the Australian tennis open on the telly and boring myself to sleep. The modern game is too one-dimensional, the players too predictable. The pumping of the fist after a winner is now de rigueur, as is the tapping of the ball five, 10, in the case of Nadal, 16 times ...
This isn’t the first time I’ve written a story about CBRE, the multinational worth 28 billion and headed by Brett White, in this space. The behemoth, which did not do its due diligence and managed to lose the life savings of hard working people, most of whom are in their eighties, has finally ...
GSTAAD—The row over Indonesian “hobbits” has split this beautiful alpine village in half. Alas, it began when I wrote something about the Olden, one of Gstaad’s oldest and most beautiful inns and its owner Bernie Ecclestone, of Formula I fame. The Olden was originally owned by the ...
Like Count Dracula, I used to love the night, hence nightclubs and late-night parties were the staple of my life. Back in the good old days when Eisenhower was president, I used to sneak out from my boarding school near Princeton University—50 miles from New York City—and go to El Morocco, the ...
What I've often wondered about is the hurt feelings of those whose inferior names have been chucked for more upmarket ones. If my son suddenly became Prince John-Taki Schoenburg-Hartenstein, I'd be awfully pissed off. In fact I'd cut him off and tell him to collect his allowance from the ...
