I write this on July 14, France’s big day, and on the 25th anniversary of my father’s passing. He died at dawn, on the bicentennial of the uprising, as if he couldn’t bear French triumphalism over the foul event one more second. Actually he had a massive heart attack as he was preparing to go off on his boat. His butler found him and that was that. I think of him and certainly dream of him quite a lot, and I’m now ...
Island of Rhodos—When I’m on the water, I feel I was born to it. Yachting has always been a way to enjoy the sea and the nature associated with it. The motion through water, the breeze and spray on the face, the anticipation of a landfall, the sheer beauty of leaning into the wind and watching the bowsprit plunge in and then emerge shaking water off itself like a puppy, these are some of the pleasures. Well, I’m on a ...
To Fort Belvedere for a ball that most likely will discourage any more balls because of its brilliance and perfection. Galen and Hilary Weston, who lease the historic house, once the playground of Edward VIII and the venue where he signed the Instrument of Abdication in front of his three brothers, are amazing hosts. In this age of gushing exhibitionism, their restraint and good taste leave one speechless upon arrival. On a ...
The greatest criminal and most profitable enterprise the world over is FIFA. I write this as billions are watching obscenely overpaid footballers competing for a cup that is long overdue for a total remake. It was a very good idea long ago, but so was selective democracy and waging war with bows and arrows. Let's take it from the top: The head gangster is Swiss and goes by the name of Sepp Blatter. Like his name, he's straight ...
When I hear the words Sykes-Picot I more often than not feel like punching an Englishman or a Frog—any Englishman, any Frog—in the mouth, but then I think of François Georges-Picot’s granddaughter Olga, and my pugilistic thoughts turn to romantic mush. More about those two arrogant and ignorant fools later, but first Olga. I was twenty-two and she was nineteen or twenty and we met in New York where she was studying ...
As everyone who has ever joined a club knows, Pugs is the world’s most exclusive one, its 19 members varying from German nobility and Greek and Danish royalty to the British upper classes, Indian nobility, and American and Greek aristocracy. Plus Sir Bob Geldof and Roger Taylor, of pop music royalty. Club rules forbid membership to exceed 21, hence a titanic struggle is taking place as I write to fill our last two spots. ...
"Summertime, and the livin" is easy," as the song tells us. Or it used to be, as my father complained when confronted on his boat by the "vacances payées," the socialist French system that ensured all working people could invade the south of France for a month and still collect their salaries. Old Dad was a very fair employer"he owned textile factories and tankers"but he liked his Riviera beaches ...
Gstaad—A slight bump at 30,000 feet concentrates the mind, as the good Dr. Johnson said about an appointment with the gallows. Halfway over the Atlantic and lost in a fantasy, I came back in a hurry as the plane shook and trembled, yet my first thought was to show off, pretend I hadn’t noticed, exhibit a kind of brazen indifference while my co-passengers nervously tightened their seatbelts. It was only a bump, the nose ...
Last week in the Bagel, and then London here I come. As I write, hundreds of thousands of Jews are marching up 5th Avenue for “Salute to Israel Day.” They have been marching for close to six hours and although not as messy as the Puerto Ricans, they come close in noise and provocation. Looking out from my window I see only blue and white Israeli flags, no stars and stripes whatsoever, and the chants I hear are those of the ...
I write this while American unmanned flights and 18 American "specialists" are looking for those 200 unfortunate girls abducted by Boko Haram, a group our very own Hillary Clinton had refused to place on a terrorist watch list of the State Department. Boko Haram is as bad as it gets and as violent as it can be, but it's no different from al-Nusra Front or ISIS, fighting in Syria against the government of Bashar ...
New York—Here’s a question for you loyal readers: If a fellow asks his wife to cook him a hearty meal of goat meat and she serves lentils instead, is he within his rights to beat her to death with a stick, as a New Yorker who is on trial this week did? Mind you, Noor Hussain is not a native Noo Yawker; he comes from Pakistan, but he’s as American as, I guess, not apple pie but the lentils that got him in this spot of ...
So the wedding of my little girl to Andy Bancroft Cooke went off without a hitch, a wonderful ceremony in a beautiful Catholic church off Portman Square and even the weather played ball and gave us the most perfect spring day imaginable, cloudless and cool, Green Park at its most glorious as we drank outdoors in the long terrace and lunched in Spencer House, which pulled out all the stops. It’s hard to believe but as I was ...
Like the late Christopher Hitchens, who only discovered his Jewish roots once he had moved to New York in the late Seventies, Donald Sterling has also had a revelation and is advertising the fact that he’s a Jew. For any of you who might not be aware who Sterling is, he was born Tokowitz 81 years ago but changed his name to Sterling to sound ritzier. He is a slum landlord who evicts poor women and orphans, began his career ...
For some of you younger readers the name Schmuel Gelbfisz will not ring a bell. Yet back in the 30s, Schmuel Gelbfisz’s identity was a dinner party quiz, and the one who guessed correctly would receive a kiss from Mary Pickford—America’s sweetheart—if he happened to be a man, or an expensive trinket if a lady got it right. Schmuel was born in Warsaw, Poland, in July 1879, a Hasidic Jew, but later allegedly falsified his ...
The vicissitudes of getting old are linked to the mystical innocence of childhood as one daydreams the precious time away. I’m a daydreamer par excellence, and lately I’ve been thinking nonstop about my daughter. She’s getting married this week and I’m off to London for the festivities. Solipsist that I am, it’s nice to think of others for a change. It’s the nature of prestidigitation to mix one’s self and one’s ...
NEW YORK — The poet was right, April is the cruelest month. We at the Spectator lost Clarissa Tan, my good friend Bob Geldof’s 25-year-old daughter Peaches died, and my oldest friend from prep school buried his son, one of the greatest athletes of his time, at age 42. There is something obscene about surviving the young, something only politicians like Tony Blair can do and still smile, and A.E. Housman got it right in his ...
