Autumn in New York, they even wrote a song about it that was a great hit sixty years ago. Last weekend the sky was awash in blue, Manhattan at its best, with Central Park gleaming in green and only the crowds marring the views. New York has changed dramatically these last fifty years, but what city has not? The place has gotten richer, but not better as far as the quality of life is concerned. That ghastly Bloomberg midget sold ...
I have always believed that the mission of post-Fred & Ginger movies has been to reduce, insofar as it lay within their power, the manners and morals of the community. Long before the camera was invented, the ancient Greeks used to throw playwrights in jail for corrupting society, old Aristophanes always one step ahead of the sheriff, a practice that has not been followed by our generation because there are not enough jail ...
An intelligent letter from a reader, Stanislas Yassukovich, CBE, warms my heart. It’s nice to know there are others as appalled as I am with today’s so-called elite and their ghastly manners. Good manners, a rarity today, are not a superficial habit. They serve a moral purpose, that of an inner unselfishness, a readiness to put others first. They are the opposite of brute force, concealing man’s natural belligerence. Once ...
The latest brouhaha about professional football players beating up their little wimmen has me shocked, shocked that such a thing could take place in modern day America, home of the depraved. But before I go on about why black football multimillionaires don"t get enough violence on the playing field but have to bring it home with them, a word about head trauma. When I was a fresh kid from Europe in lower school at ...
The time-honored saying that England’s great battles have been won on the playing fields of Eton is a lot of hooey. Blücher was the real winner against Napoleon at Waterloo, and the only thing he said to Wellington after the battle was “Quelle affaire!” (Hardly an old Eton expression.) England’s great battles have been won by some old Etonians, to be sure, but the heavy lifting has been done by England’s allies, like ...
This is about life up high. A Brit rapscallion and mischief-maker gossip columnist, Peter McKay, recently diverted from type and wrote about how great it is to pilot a plane. (He’s taking lessons and has flown solo.) I’ve always been told that piloting a motorcycle and a plane is about the same, and the rascal is a motorcyclist. His build, looks, and accent are far more suited to riding on two wheels than piloting an ...
Athens—This grimy, semi-Levantine, ancient city has its beauty spots, with childhood memories indelibly attached. A turn of the century apartment building, across the street from my house, where in 1942 or ’43 I watched a daughter and wife scream in horror from their balcony as three nondescript assassins executed a man while he bent over to get into his chauffeur-driven car. His name was Kalyvas and he was a minister in ...
Next time you read about an auctioneer’s gavel coming down on a 150-million-dollar painting bought by some flunky representing the gangster ruling family of Qatar, don’t ooh or aah, but think of those monsters in Iraq and Syria who have their children pose on video while holding up the severed heads of innocents. And no, it’s not a stretch. Without Qatar’s gold IS would not exist, not even in the movies. Or let me put ...
Ibiza—This island is the Spanish equivalent of the Greek sex rock of Mykonos, except its waters are murkier, its nightclubs and restaurants far more expensive, but its hookers first class and not to be compared to anything selling itself in Greece. Why that is so, I don’t know, but Greece gets the dregs where the world’s oldest profession is concerned, whereas Ibiza and Spain reign supreme. No, I did not indulge, but I ...
Back in the very early 60s there was an uninhabited islet off the west coast of Greece by the name of Skorpios. It was wild, with neglected olive groves, and its asking price was around 60 thousand dollars. Step forward, Aristotle Socrates Onassis, who snapped it up and for good measure put some pocket change in for the even tinier Sparti Island next door. From the large Ionian island of Lefkas one can swim to Skorpios in less ...
An American friend who is very well connected in Washington, D.C. was telling me he's worried about Europe. So what else is new, I said. "No, I really mean it, future generations could grow up under Islamic rule." It was a John McEnroe moment, as in you can"t be serious. He assured me he was. Let's see, anything is possible, but an Islamic Europe? Well, Brussels is 40 percent Muslim, and there are 5.5 million ...
Gstaad—Can somebody tell me when was the last time America got it right? Uncle Sam’s track record in selecting leaders in faraway places reminds me very much of my own, where libel is concerned: Plaintiffs 5, Taki 0. Let’s see, the good Uncle overthrew Mohammad Mossaddegh in Iran back in the early 50s in order for the Shah to become his man in Persia. The Shah went gallivanting in St. Moritz, threw very expensive parties ...
Gstaad—In this freewheeling Swiss village of the 1950s, the unconventional was the norm, monumental drinking commonplace, but the manners of the players were always impeccable. Yes, there were ladies of lower-class parentage and of a dubious past, but they covered it up with a grand manner and an affected aristocratic confidence they had learned through experience. That’s how things were back then; the slags that pass for ...
Porto Cheli—Nothing is moving, not a twig nor a leaf, and I find myself missing the cows, the mountains, and the bad weather. The sun has become the enemy, a merciless foe who can only be tolerated when swimming, something I do daily and for close to an hour. Nothing very strenuous, mind you, except for an all-out 50-stroke crawl toward the end. For someone who has swum every year since 1940, I’m a lousy swimmer. Not as bad ...
Porto Cheli—I have been thinking about my children and my own strange boyhood as I gaze up at the clear blue skies of summer. Summers lasted an eternity back then, and by the time one got back to school there were new friends, new loves, and new discoveries of things unknown the previous May. For example, I had seen my father kiss a very pretty woman whose name was French, Raimonde, a blonde beauty who was engaged to dad’s ...
Ask any Greek about the Turks and the best you"ll get is a grimace. More often than not the answer will be a swear word and the word "barbarians" thrown in for good measure. Ditto the Congolese when the word "Belgium" comes up, not to mention the Algerians when discussing la belle France. The Indians do not play this game. They always considered themselves superior to the British, who more or less lorded it ...
