"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 baleful power of craggy old age over brilliant youth. What rubbish. Judging by my own children, the moment I mention money " ...
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 own Pino – seating us and feeding us for 44 years – and the Taki Cup awards, the last two years won by my son J.T. in record ...
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 is a hysterical, spoilt, ugly fat man who thinks his opinions count. (Perhaps with non-talents like Liz Hurley and Victoria Beckham.) ...
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 issue gray flannel suits, hats, and stifled alternative views. No longer. Common points of reference today are unrecognizable, at least ...
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 area where once upon a time Pericles, Themistocles and Alcibiades – to name three – trod, orated and debated non-stop. Back ...
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 kept nailing him, something I hadn’t been able to do previously. That’s when it dawned on me. Respecting my advanced age, he was ...
The week after the murdering scum of ISIS beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya"their crime was being Christians"the European Commission opened an investigation of Christian schools in Britain for allegedly "discriminating" against nonreligious teachers. In other words, the unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats of Brussels want to force schools with a Christian ethos to stop giving preference to religious ...
A naked, very good-looking young man skied down the mountain, evoking shrieks of laughter and admiration from the hundred or so skiers lining the slopes. He turned out to be J.T., my son, and it was an act of protest against the mind-numbing conversation of some people at the Eagle Club who were talking about titles. A friend had skied ahead and was waiting for him at the bottom with a blanket. Needless to say it became the ...
I hate to start with a cliché, but Count Arnaud de Borchgrave d’Altena, who died in Washington, D.C., last week aged 88, was the last of the great foreign correspondents, with trench coat, suntan, title, and 17 wars under his belt included. One accomplishment none of his obituaries comprised—mind you, this is perfectly understandable—was the introduction to journalism and subsequent mentoring of the greatest Greek writer ...
Gstaad—Once upon a time, clergymen saw mountain peaks as natural steeples leading them ever closer to God. Doctors considered the mountains the best medicine for tuberculosis, while explorers saw them as rocks never before touched by humans. I thought of those good people while T-barring up the Eggli, in way below freezing conditions but in bright sunshine. For some strange reason, whenever I’m really cold, I try to think ...
The good news is that a Greek suppository is about to relieve the EU’s economic constipation. The bad is that there’s a Castro in our midst, posing—just like Fidel did 56 years ago—as a democratically elected populist. Back then it was Uncle Sam who was the bogeyman. Now it’s the EU. Back then the Soviet Bear came to Fidel’s rescue. Now it’s Putin. Personally, I’ll take Vlad over the faceless unelected Brussels ...
I am not Charlie, nor will I ever be. Wearing a Je suis Charlie badge is one sure way of getting attention, but I will leave that to others. And another thing: Obscenity has no redeeming social value, and Charlie Hebdo was and is one long obscenity. But let's start with that famous Parisian march of mourners, one that had more criminals in its front row than a Mafia funeral. How is it possible that the gangster who calls ...
Thick snow is falling hard and heavy, muffling sounds and turning the village from picturesque into postcard-beautiful. I am lying in bed listening to a Mozart version of “Ave Maria,” with a heavenly soprano almost bringing tears to my eyes with the loveliness of it. This is the civilization of our ancestors, one that gave us Mozart and Schubert and Beethoven and built cathedrals all over the most wondrous continent in the ...
I had a short chat with BBC Radio concerning the actor Jack Nicholson, whom I knew slightly during the 70s and 80s. Alas, it had to do with age, his and mine, 77 and 78 respectively. No, the man on the other side of the telephone did not ask me anything embarrassing. All he wanted to know was: Do women still come on to an oldie, or are they, as Jack Nicholson claims, a thing of the past? Well, for starters, I do not believe ...
This is a good time to write about a nation’s resilience in the face of calamity. I am referring to the stoic discipline with which the Japanese bore hardship and the death of 15,000 people in March 2011 following a 9-magnitude earthquake, the strongest ever known to have hit Japan. I can remember the TV coverage as if it were yesterday. Very young and very old Japanese forming a long orderly line for disaster supplies. No ...
Although an acknowledged sinner for most of my adult life " I chase women non-stop, drink to excess, smoke and gamble " I have never left the easy foothills of faith, a Catholic faith imbued in me by my father, raised a Jesuit. Now, you"re not going to find many Greek ship owners brought up Jesuits, but my old man came from the Ionian Islands, a part of Greece that was never conquered by the loathsome Turks, but by ...
