The French are up in arms, as always; the Brits have raised eyebrows; and the Americans are nonplussed, as they thought Napoleon was a brandy. The brouhaha has to do with the latest movie about the Emperor of the French, one I am told contains great battle scenes but also saturnine mumbles from Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon. When I was young, the Corsican-born great was my hero. Did you, by the way, know that Napo ranks third ...

The question was a valid one: “How could you, a conservative and a gentleman, be for them?” The man is an acquaintance of long standing, also a gent, so I bothered to explain: “Because I’ve been there and have seen what’s going on up close.” Needless to say, it was the Middle East we were talking about, and my sympathy for the Palestinians, as opposed to tiny Israel surrounded by hostile Arab nations. I was based ...

“Vengeance is mine,” is the Lord’s saying, but also the title of a best-selling Mickey Spillane trashy novel of the ’50s. The slaughter that’s taking place in the Middle East as I write this is all about vengeance, but then most wars are about revenge. In May 1946, in Tokyo, the American victors decided to put on trial the Japanese losers, with 28 defendants sitting before judges chosen from nations on the winning ...

Okay, you fans of such classics as Age of Innocence, House of Mirth, and Ethan Frome, Julian Fellowes is no Edith Wharton, but for the dregs of what’s left of society today, he’ll do. He’s a Brit, a funny little fellow—pun intended—whom I sat next to at a London gentlemen’s club luncheon long ago. He had not as yet found fame and fortune for his Downton Abbey TV series, and he seemed awfully anxious to please. “My ...

I spotted a tiny faux pas, as they say in the land of cheese and garlic, and only mention it for the follow-up. I was watching a black-and-white movie made in 1948 starring Gale Storm, a beautiful young American actress in her debut role, when in a scene she exits an elevator accompanied by three men all wearing fedoras. Believe it or not, it could not have happened in real life. All men wore hats back then, and all men removed ...

Oh dear! A rift has taken place in Hollywood over the killings that are going on in Gaza as I write; mind you, it is a rare one because lefty Tinseltown speaks with one mind when it comes to politics. Conservative actors and executives over the hundred or so years that Hollywood has existed have been few, but they definitely counted when Uncle Sam called during World War II. Jimmy Stewart, a conservative, flew twenty missions ...

David Kaufman is an unknown writing protest letters to British newspapers against Elon Musk and the Fall of Rome. He equates the rise of the former with the demise of the latter. Losers like Kaufman tend to stretch things a bit in order to attract attention. I’m a Musk fan, but the reason I disagree with Kaufman is because Rome did not fall because of “tax dodgers and semi-cultivated usurpers” but because in the mid–4th ...

From the horror that is Gaza to horror comedy here in the Big Bagel. Sam Bankman-Fried is on trial for stealing 8 billion smackers from investors, but as he has pleaded not guilty, I suppose I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. SBF, as I shall call him for the duration, is not burdened by guilt, nor is he worried by his lack of hygiene and many other things, I’m told. Before his fall last November, SBF was the darling ...

A major in the reserves of the Israeli army, Nir Avishai Cohen, got it more right than all the blowhards pumping out hot air about Gaza all week: Love Israel, Support Palestine is the name of his book written and published last year, and in a newspaper article after the horrors had begun, he reconfirmed it. And added to it: “There’s no such thing as unavoidable,” he wrote. The ideology of the elite, whatever side ...

GSTAAD—My last days in good old Helvetia before heading for sunny London and grubby old New York. And they are beautiful days and crispy nights here while the bells are ringing. The cows and the goats are down from the heights, and they make for an improved atmosphere as the new rich have departed for places like Dubai or Monte Carlo. I’ve been reading up on Elon Musk and how bitchy some reviewers of his biography have ...

I had a good talk with my NBF, Owen Matthews, at the Spectator writers’ party, agreeing on the two subjects we discussed: Russia and women. I won’t exaggerate the enormity of our aggregate knowledge—and the way we have deployed it in our service especially where the fairer sex is concerned—suffice it to say that it is far beyond the comprehension of most individuals who concern themselves only with money. Speaking of ...

Lord Moore and I go back a ways, more than forty-some-odd years. I clearly remember the first time we met at editor Alexander Chancellor’s office at The Spectator. I was called in and Alexander introduced me to a fresh 25-year-old-looking Charles, who had just been named foreign editor. “He went to our old school,” joked Alexander, knowing full well I was not an old Etonian. “I don’t remember you there,” said I. ...

GSTAAD—Writing in the Spectator diary, Lady Antonia Fraser, widow of Harold Pinter, recounts how then vice president Lyndon Johnson stipulated at a Jamaican party that he would dance as long as no words were exchanged. Toward the end of her dance with Lyndon, Antonia noted how well Lady Bird looked, and LBJ simply walked off the dance floor. A later occupant of the White House, Jimmy Carter, was not as discourteous as the ...

GSTAAD—This is the best news since the Bush-Blair duo saved us from the nuclear holocaust Saddam was about to unleash upon us. Half a million—perhaps even one million—dead Iraqis later, we were, nevertheless, saved with minutes to spare, so we should always believe official sources. Especially when Uncle Sam is involved. This time the good news is not nuclear but musical. The Mostly Mozart Festival has been canceled by ...

GSTAAD—Here’s a tip for you young whippersnappers: Don’t get old, but if you do, you can fool Father Time by training the smart way. By this I don’t mean you should follow all that bull that floats around online. I don’t use social media, but I’m told that a system exists that reaches millions across multiple platforms that spreads misinformation about health and then some. The wellness industry means big moola and ...

GSTAAD—A reader’s inquiry as to why I think Paris was yesterday has me remembering times past. When did the party end? According to the point of view of many night owls, the party ended when the Queen of the Night, Regine, shut down “New Jimmy’s” and moved to London, where she flopped. Boring accountant types believe it was “les événements de soixante-huit,” the student-worker revolt against de Gaulle, that did ...