CHELSEA, LONDON, U.K.—Oh, to be in England, but let’s start at the beginning. I challenge any reader to claim they are more technologically disadvantaged than yours truly, or anyone not suffering from Alzheimer’s in fact. I resisted getting a mobile telephone until my days on board a sailing boat became a nightmare. I missed get-togethers and lost friends, and finally gave in around ten years ago. More trouble followed. ...
This is for you writers out there: If you’re not canceled, you’re no good. The good Dr. Seuss is out, as is Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, but Adolf Hitler is still in, although I can’t say the same for William Shakespeare. Everyone who’s anyone is getting canceled, so I was glad to see Captain Cook also gone, because BLM said so for his “invasion” of Australia. Never mind that Cook discovered that beautiful ...
GSTAAD—I have not experienced such a long, continuous blizzard ever, and I’ve been coming here for 63 years. The ski lifts are closed, as are the hotels, and it’s been dumping for a week nonstop. My Portuguese handyman Fernando now lives on his snow plow, clearing the private road that leads to the house, as useless a task as trying to bail out the Titanic. By now I should be in London, enjoying my new rented house in ...
GSTAAD—Some of you may have noticed I have not commented at all about the running soap opera and latest brouhaha concerning the Halfwit and Meghan Macbeth. That’s because I decided long ago the best way to counter their publicity machine is to never mention them. But I’ve also done something most of the hacks writing about the couple have not: I’ve been a guest on Oprah’s show twice, once by my little old self for a ...
It is the sine qua non of a successful coup to first and foremost ensure the takeover of the means of information: radio, television, and newspapers. That is what the Greek colonels did in the last successful European coup back on April 21, 1967. Some years later, a colonel tried to overthrow the elected post-Franco Spanish government but failed, having taken over the Parliament rather than the TV and radio station. This, of ...
GSTAAD—I was very sad to read of Rupert Hambro’s death. I didn’t know him well, but first met him long ago, along with his younger brother Rick, also gone, both quintessential English gentlemen, handsome, kind, and with a great sense of humor. Rupert invited me to lunch quite a few times, but because of circumstance I was never able to reciprocate. The last one was at Wilton’s, which he owned, I believe, but he never ...
GSTAAD—That’s all we needed in a great year, for The Great Gatsby’s copyright to expire. Some Fitzgerald wannabe has already cashed in with a prequel, and I’m certain the worst is yet to come. I suppose the insatiable hunger for fame and celebrity in order to impress a shallow and scatterbrained blonde across the water made Gatsby a very tragic hero, but not as tragic as Hemingway’s Jake Barnes, who had his ...
GSTAAD—The sun has returned, the snow is so-so, and exercise has replaced everything, including romance. What a way to go, after a wasted year that did wonders for my health, the diet is about to kill the patient. This is the good-bad news, the really great news is that Shakespeare has been canceled by some woke American female teachers because they think his classic works promote “misogyny, racism, homophobia, classism, ...
GSTAAD—Good old Helvetia, I’m quitting her for the rainy but pleasant land of England, the cows beginning to resemble chorus girls and the village an alpine Colditz. Too much of a good thing, said a wise man to a friend of mine who wanted to live on the French Riviera year-round. That was long ago. The South of France is now what Trump described some Central American countries as, a “shithole,” and a very expensive one ...
GSTAAD—During these dark endless moments of lockdown, let’s take a trip down memory lane of real high life, of parties galore, of carefree times with girls in their summer dresses, and of drunken dawns playing polo in dinner jackets. Creatures began to move properly about 500 million years ago, but I will only take you back some fifty or so years, when chic creatures moved to the beat of the samba, the tango, the waltz, and ...
GSTAAD—Imagine a beautiful, sexy woman, an Ava Gardner or a Lily James, with a wart at the end of her nose. It stands out double, whereas on an ugly countenance it would almost go unnoticed. Noise in beautiful and peaceful surroundings disturbs more than in grating, jarring cities. Last week, after yet another record snowfall, on a beautiful sunny afternoon, I was cross-country skiing and stopped for a picnic lunch with Lara ...
The question of what is truth has been around since the Greeks, perhaps even before that. One can speak of moral truth as well as of aesthetic truth, yet scientific truth seems to me to be one that’s undeniable. And yet, there’s definite proof the world is round, although there are those who deny it and are to be found living normal lives among us and not in mental institutions. That old Greek Diogenes was often seen ...
GSTAAD—Martha Gellhorn was a long-legged blond American writer and journalist who became Papa Hemingway’s third and penultimate wife. She got her start when H.G. Wells, then 70 years old, fell for her rather badly, advised her on her writing, and paid her a small retainer to keep him up to date on American trends. She was 27 at the time. Wells had met Martha at the White House during the Franklin Roosevelt years before the ...
GSTAAD—I was very friendly with the late Sir David Barclay, a man who treasured his privacy and was not drawn to alpine high jinks and gossip. It was, as prolegomenon to the most British of understatements, an unlikely friendship. We met on the slopes a long time ago. I had just finished a run and was taking off my skis when he approached me and asked if my name was Taki. I nodded to the affirmative and he said, “I like ...
GSTAAD—Lord Belhaven and Stenton, a wonderful man and the quintessential English gentleman, died at 93 just before the end of the crappiest of years, but Robin was lucky in a way. No tubes, no hospital beds, not another Chinese virus statistic. His widow, Lady Belhaven, gave me the bad news over the telephone, and although she was devastated after a very long and happy marriage, she is very smart and realizes that it was a ...
GSTAAD—While Chekhovian boredom ruled supreme, the loss of my luggage brought instant relief. Anger beats boredom by a mile, especially when mixed with paranoia about a plot against the rich. Let me explain: On Monday, Dec. 21, I left the Bagel, destination Switzerland, checking in at the first-class counter of Suisse, as the national airline of Helvetia is now called. I was informed that I would be traveling alone up front ...
