Dripping with malice, envy and venom, hacks are having the time of their life as Conrad Black goes to trial in Chicago, a city known for its smiling wallet-lifters and corrupt public officials. Not since Fat Bob Maxwell took a dive into the Med back in 1991 have those holier than thou members of ...

Barack Obama sounds very exotic but he is an unknown quantity with a 100 percent liberal voting record, whose only claim to instant fame is his skin color. What the hell is going on here? Just because a part-black man has obvious charisma and is soft-spoken and decent, is it enough to make him ...

Back in the Fifties, Gstaad was a tiny alpine village without supermarkets nor boutiques. There were a few chairlifts and sledge trains—funicular railways—which crept up its gentle slopes. All in all there were about 2,000 beds, a few inns, three or four picturesque restaurants which served ...

No politician except for those wishing to retire immediately will risk the wrath of the Israel ...

Erich Maria Remarque was a hell of a man. Good looking, a terrific womanizer and a heavy drinker, he bedded most Hollywood stars he came into contact with, and he came into contact with many of them. He was Marlene Dietrich's favorite beau, was married to Paulette Goddard, and had affairs with ...

It was 1890, and the opera was Lucia di Lamermoor. The Donizetti masterpiece was conducted by a Bulgarian maestro and the opera house--recently opened--was filled by Greek society in the good seats, and by poor people, who had never heard an opera in their lives, who were more or less bribed off ...

Nixon was demonised by the press from day one. He was ill at ease in public, and did not possess the Kennedy blarney which so endeared that flawed Irish clan to the chattering classes. He was not cool, as my son would say, but so what? After all, is style superior to substance, especially where ...

The real reason for American rage against Iran is the knowledge that the Shiites have made complete fools of them. Shiite exiles like the conman Ahmad Chalabi not only took Yankee gold, but sold them snake oil no five-year-old would buy. They then conned Uncle Sam in removing Iran's most ferocious ...

Andy Warhol was a unique American phenomenon. When his infamous diaries came out - the first best-seller purposely without an index, so fame groupies could not read about themselves in the bookstore and then not buy the opus - I was surprised to find myself mentioned almost as many times as some ...

Prizes and awards depend on whims of insiders, nothing more, nothing less. Certain themes are sacrosanct, such as disabilities. Hence Daniel Day Lewis in My Left Foot and Geoffrey Rush in Shine. The Academy also has intellectual pretensions. Shakespearian and Mozartian themes have won the biggest ...