I always thought the Freuds a pretty sordid bunch, and after the latest revelations, it seems I wasn’t far off. I first met Clement Freud when John Aspinall employed him as an adviser for food and wine. He was lugubrious and aggressive, and none of us punters liked him one bit. He was not a gambler but talked as if he were a big one. While crossing the Atlantic on board the QE2 back in 1974, he tried to play the tough guy ...

Marion, Baroness Lambert, was hit and killed by a London bus last month while shopping on Oxford Street, a cruel irony if there ever was one. “At least a Bentley,” was the way Steven Aronson, the writer, put it. Marion was a very old friend of mine. She had endured the worst tragedy that can befall a mother, having lost a beautiful young daughter to suicide years ago. Philippine Lambert had been sexually abused by a ...

Shelter Island—Nestled in the Long Island Sound, ten minutes by ferryboat from Sag Harbor and a good thirty from the horrible Hamptons, their Porches, their mega-mansions, and their celebrity trash, lies the island that in my last week in the Big Bagel took me back to the ’40s and ’50s for a weekend. Shelter Island is what the Hamptons used to be: tranquil, beautiful, rustic, unspoiled, with lovely ponds bordered by shady ...

Write about things you really know, was the advice Papa Hemingway offered wannabe writers, so here goes: The French Open is still on, Wimbledon is coming up, and I’ve just read a lament by some Frenchwoman about how professional tennis and big-time sports have become ever more ubiquitous and ever more out of reach. Duh! A former model by the name of Géraldine Maillet has made a documentary about the 2015 French Open, not ...

Things have never been grimmer. Wall Street wolves have become billionaires while rigging the system, rats like William Kristol are showboating on television and spreading lies about The Donald, and the most dishonest couple since Bonnie and Clyde are getting themselves ready to reinhabit the White House. In times such as these, there is only one thing to do: lighten up, and then some. I remember it as if it were yesterday. It ...

Let’s face it, sleaze is to professional party-givers what jail is to burglars: an occupational hazard. I’ve been reading about parties in Cannes, described in glowing terms by stars-in-their-eyes hacks who should, but do not, know better. Well, dear readers of Taki’s Magazine, I’m afraid I’ve been there and done it all, and believe you me, “squalor” is the operative word. Obscene publicity-seekers posing as role ...

New York—I have never seen anything like it. If Adolf Hitler were running, he would match Donald Trump’s negative coverage. If Benito were in the race, his notices would be far more favorable. Once The Donald became the last man standing, some NY Times columnists became unhinged. One hysterical woman pundit accused Trump of…not having any money. The one I liked best was a colleague of hers who is usually unreadable ...

New York—It was the best of times—downtown—and the worst of times—uptown. Let’s start with the horror near the park: Cranial atrophy, unrelenting grossness, overarched and overgrown eyebrows, posterior-baring bondage outfits, and de haut en bas attitudes were the order of the night. Never has a museum site been more desecrated by a freak show, and the Met—maybe the best museum in the whole wide world—should be ...

Once the French had cleared out of Moscow in October 1812, special commissions were set up to investigate those who had played nice with the invaders. Only 22 people, all of them of foreign extraction, had failed to remain true to their oath of loyalty to the Tsar. They were duly sent to Siberia. To the Tsar's and the nobility's great relief, the serfs had not taken the opportunity the French offered them to rise up against ...

I read this in an American newspaper (it was written by a woman who used to edit my copy for a New York glossy, but I will withhold her name to save her embarrassment and social atrophy): “He’s hosted Kim Kardashian and Kanye West for Thanksgiving, regularly cruises with Justin Bieber on his party yacht….” The mind reels. Is it possible to read such crap without throwing up? How would you, dear reader, like to spend ...

The English writer E.M. Forster infamously said that if he had to betray either his country or a friend, he hoped he would betray the former. He was cheered for it by Oxford swells who had seen their elders slaughtered in the trenches during World War I, and by fellow homosexuals whose proclivities were illegal at the time. This was sometime in the "€™30s. I remember being appalled upon reading it and saying to myself how ...

My, my, the rich are under attack everywhere, and I thank God the Panama Papers didn’t include the name of the poor little Greek boy. Legality being my middle name, I took legal advice and stayed away from offshore trusts and shell companies as soon as my daddy died. No Mossack Fonseca, they advised, everything’s gotta be on the up-and-up. Mind you, it beats being on a Panama list with all the hacks poring over my ...

New York—Harvey Keitel, the actor, rang up to invite me to a Marine shindig where General Petraeus would be guest speaker. The venue was Carnegie Hall, and I arrived late, having had a tough session at the karate dojo. I was also very dehydrated. Next to me was a beautiful young woman by the name of Aimee, who introduced me to her fiancé, a familiar-looking young man with a friendly manner. I looked at his place card and it ...

New York—Even after all these years, I’m still at times floored by the scale of the place. And it’s always the old reliables that stand out: the silvery arcs of the Chrysler Building; the wide avenues; the filigree of Central Park; the limestone monument to power, Rockefeller Center. The recent trend for tall, slender, and glassy housing for money-laundering Russians and Chinese curiously does not mix with the city’s ...

My old friend and onetime doubles partner Ray Moore has stepped down as chief executive of the Indian Wells Tennis Tournament for telling the truth. As Rod Liddle wrote in The Spectator a couple of weeks ago, “There is nothing more damaging to a career than telling an unfortunate truth.” Ray Moore was a very good South African tennis player and is a very nice guy. He once partnered me to a final in a major tournament and we ...

On November 17, 1813, the bravest of the brave, Marshal Ney, had been the last to march out of Smolensk amid harrowing scenes. The hospital wards, the corridors, and the stairs were full of the dead and dying. Napoleon had gone into Russia the year before with 500,000 men and was now leaving with less than 40,000. Ney had only 6,000 under his command but was determined not to fall into Russian hands. The Russian commander ...