A recent column in the FT had me mad as hell and not about to take it any more. The writer, Simon Kuper, calls Vienna a backwater, a bit like calling the Queen a busted flush because of her age. Sure, he writes how great Vienna was back when the Habsburgs ruled the roost, attracting people from all ...
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One of those self important, so called pundits once asked Norman Mailer if fascism was coming to America. The pompous one had once worked for Time magazine, so Norman answered him with a pun. "It's going to be a Luce sort of fascism." Mailer was always unpredictable and hard to pin down ...
New York - “Gimme a BLT on rye and hold da mayo” is a great Noo Yawk sound. So is boid for bird, and toerty toird for 33rd street. True working class accents no longer exist in the Bagel, and one is far more likely to hear “Deme un BLT y guarde la mayonesa,” by our Dominican or Puerto ...
Ah Spring, the spring of our frost bitten age. At the Polish Club in London, a wonderful place studded with portraits of Polish patriots who have fought and sacrificed for the West’s freedom. In this beautiful and heroic setting, your High Life correspondent gave a speech about what it’s like ...
"There is no more potent instrument of fate in 19th century fiction than the legacy." So writes a female columnist in Britain's best newspaper, The Daily Telegraph, and then goes on to say some rude things about trust fund babies. According to the lady, a will stands as a symbol of the ...
End of season is always bittersweet, the melting snows a bit like autumn leaves, but the days are longer and soon spring will chase any remaining winter blues away. The Eagle Club’s closing is a perennial festive day, with speeches by our president Urs Hodler, an almost teary goodbye to our very ...
It’s a famous quote by F. Scott Fitzgerald, one that Elton John should ponder, when he’s not out shopping, that is. “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.” Mind you, Elton John ...
Flipping through some television garbage trying to induce sleep, I came upon an old western starring Kirk Douglas, Dorothy Malone and Rock Hudson. Once upon a time the above names would trigger common points of reference. A collective vocabulary signifying the Fifties, chrome tailfins, standard ...
Athens – I am walking on a wide pedestrian road beneath the Acropolis within 200 meters of the remaining Themistoclean wall and the ancient cemetery to eminent Athenians. One side is lined with splendid neo-classical houses, none of them abandoned but most of them shuttered and locked up. This is ...
The secret of eternal youth, according to Alice Longworth Roosevelt, is arrested development, and the penny dropped last week. The mountains were misty, snow was falling, and I went to the dojo for some karate training. I was sparring with a tough, fifth degree black belt instructor, Roland, and ...
