Look at it this way, we’re all doing Desert Island Discs nowadays, and unless you got the bug, it’s a damn good thing, too. I did the Desert Island bit around thirty years ago, with Sue Lawley the presenter, and we got along fine, even after I commented on the air that she had nice legs. I ...

Like everyone who was alive back on Nov. 22, 1963, I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when news of the president’s assassination flashed through. (I was coming out of New York’s 21 Club after lunch.) JFK was not only one of the youngest-ever presidents, he was also probably the ...

Desperately boring times, but very healthy ones. No parties, no girls, not too much boozing, lots of smoking and reading very late into the night. And nonstop training and sport. What else can one do when locked in with one’s wife and one’s son and with nostalgic thoughts of a time when people ...

No use datelining anymore, I’m here for the duration. Even the ski lifts have been ordered closed, chiuso, geschlossen, fermé. The only way to ski now is in the old-fashioned manner, à la Hemingway: Climb up with skins, peel them off, and enjoy the one and only run of the day. Not only is the ...

GSTAAD—I was hoping to leave this virus-besieged village for the Bagel, especially after some jerk drove up from Milan and, not feeling his best, attended a party given by a woman who is as obese as Vivien Duffield and just as pushy. An item appeared in the press about the shindig and some people ...

GSTAAD—I shoulda been a weatherman. No sooner had I announced snow to be a Gstaad rarity than it came down nonstop. Then it rained, so everything’s hunky-dory. Older rich people who don’t ski are happy after the scare of a snowfall, while younger types who do indulge are over the moon. Happy, ...

GSTAAD—It feels like a sepia-tinged melodrama, one directed by the great schlock-master Sam Wood. Driving up the winding valleys through the 17th-century villages and the Castle of Gruyères on one’s right, the heartbeat quickened as Gstaad beckoned in the distance. It meant beautiful women, ...

I was not aware that there is a Spectator/Takimag fan club that meets in French-speaking Switzerland, and having contacted me we have agreed to meet this week up here in Gstaad. A very nice English voice over the telephone informed me of the existence of the group, asked if I was interested in ...

GSTAAD—Lenin Moreno is in trouble despite his very unchristian first name. For any of you unfamiliar with him, Señor Moreno is the president of Ecuador, a tiny South American country that I like very much because if you’ve met an Ecuadorean man, you’ve met them all: There are 16 million ...

I find myself detached from mainstream culture. It started with the demise of nightclubs like Annabel’s, and the people that frequent them with names like Lil Nas X, Dua Lipa, Lizzo, Fat Joe, Pusha T, DaBaby, and others of their ilk. All real names, incidentally, lifted from saccharine, ...