Although my birthday was in August, I chose the rather autumnal melancholy moment of September to celebrate it—mourn it, rather. There are no ifs or buts about it, turning 80 is like that final beautiful gleam of light just before you lose consciousness during a boxing bout. The beauty of ...

Sicily – Under the watchful eye of Mount Etna the storied past of the island lies parched and yellowish, but as one gets nearer to the fiery growling giant the air turns cool, the sun glistening against black volcanic rock. Sicily is of two minds. Orange groves and beaches galore, then dank ...

I’m jittery and fragile but free of plaster and in the dojo, slowly turning lean and muscular. Never listen to your doctor, is my message. Instead of two months in a cast I spent only five weeks, and I’ve just finished a brutal three-day course of karate with both the leg and elbow still ...

I have some questions for you, dear readers: Is it simply me, or is there no newspaper or network in America that tells it like it is anymore? Take, for example, the Anthony Weiner case. He is the pervert who keeps sending pictures of his penis to women over the internet, more often than not while ...

Just about this time of year, 42 years ago, Dunhill’s of London, the famed tobacconist, had a bold idea. The president of Dunhill’s, Richard Dunhill, flew 32 backgammon players to New York and had them board the QE2 for the return trip to Southampton. The backgammon players were a varied group. ...

The Brits are big on weddings, and Pippa is getting hitched sometime this autumn, or maybe later on, when the English weather is at its best. If any Takimag readers are not familiar with Pippa, she's the sister of the commoner who is married to Prince William"€”son of Prince Charles"€”who will ...

Okay, sports fans, the Games are over, Uncle Sam and Britain hit pay dirt, and the prettiest girl of the Olympics was Morgan Lake, a black Brit high jumper who wins the gold medal for looks and proper demeanor. Here’s a tip for ambitious mothers: Take a lesson from Morgan Lake—the name is ...

In the summer of 1992 BC (before Clinton) I was cruising in Greece with William F. Buckley and his wife, Pat, on board the boat I had just inherited from my father. It was a motor yacht and Bill, a sailing enthusiast, was restless. A discussion the night before had become heated after a friend of ...

An item in an American newspaper had me thinking of my father all last week. Old dad died 27 years ago, which means I have outlived him in age, the only thing I have ever outdone him in. His achievements were too many to list here, and everything I have I owe to him. Compared with his ...

GSTAAD—“He’d fly through the air with the greatest of ease, that daring young man on the flying trapeze.” As everyone knows, life’s unfair, but this is ridiculous. An American daredevil falls out of an airplane at 25,000 feet without a parachute and manages to land on a postage-stamp-size ...