NEW YORK—When I heard about it, my own inchoate feelings were confused. A party for Seif al-Islam Gaddafi, son of Muammar Gaddafi, and the caller was Nat Rothschild, son of Lord Rothschild, a major donor to Jewish causes and Israel. What in Mohammed’s name was going on here? Nat Rothschild is no stranger to England thanks to his by now famous letter to the Times. He is less well known in America, but his Atticus fund, ...

NEW YORK—Arletty was a great French star of the silver screen during the Thirties and Forties, but she was also known for a few outspoken apophthegms about having sex with a German officer during the occupation. ‘If you hadn’t let them in, I wouldn’t have slept with him,’ and the better known, ‘My heart is French, but my arse is international.’ Like immortal ancient Greeks such as Socrates, Plato, Taki, ...

NEW YORK—Election nights in the Bagel were always spent at 73 East 73rd Street, in Bill and Pat Buckley’s house, more often than not described as palatial by eager-to-please gossip columnists. In reality it was a fine New York maisonette, better suited for entertainment rather than cosy living, the latter reserved for their tiny and warm Connecticut house. Alas, both Bill and Pat are now gone, so I had to fend for ...

I want to make something very, very clear. This column’s review of the autobiography of Cheeta, Tarzan’s chimpanzee, has absolutely nothing to do with the man who just got elected to the White House last month. Cheeta’s opus was published in Britain two months ago (Fourth Estate, 336 pages)  and has become a runaway best-seller. Is it a spoof? Obviously, but it’s a brilliant one, taking us back to ...

NEW YORK—Back in the summer of 1960, a married Hollywood actress and her friend, a Hollywood wife, came to the south of France and met a randy 23-year-old who showed them around the place. The actress was the sexy Janet Leigh, then married to Tony Curtis, and her beautiful friend was Jean Martin, whose hubby was Dean Martin, while the randy one was the poor little Greek boy. We had a very good time boating around the ...

New York America’s diminished intellectualism has made this interminable election period as boring as a Nat Rothschild Corfu party for respectable folk. Part of the problem is that presidential candidates try ‘to reach out to younger voters’, hardly an admirable goal as demographic researchers have gone the way of TV programmers, targeting young morons whose Facebooks comprise 90 per cent of their education. Hillary ...

The story so far: Old Blighty has been hit by a scandal of major proportions. People in high positions met in princely places and discussed matters not supposed to be talked about even on a yacht. In brief: Nat Rothschild, son of Lord (Jacob) Rothschild, is a partner in certain ventures of Oleg Deripaska, the richest of Russians and the sleaziest of all oligarchs—so sleazy, in fact, he’s not permitted to enter the ...

NEW YORK—“Oligarchs brace for a downturn,” screams a New York business headline, a fact that sends me rushing to buy hankies, now selling at a premium at every corner store. Bloomberg News calculates that the richest 25 Russian crooks on the Forbes list have lost a collective $230 billion since last March. Which means that the 25 richest thieves have lost more than four times Warren Buffet’s total wealth. ...

One of my favorite moments in my long life was election nite 2004, chez Bill Buckley, where I had spent every presidential election since 1972. Henry Kissinger approached me and asked—referring to the magazine Pat Buchanan and I had launched two years previous—whom I’d be voting for. “Who have you endorsed?” I was quite drunk by then and although I had endorsed a candidate, I couldn’t come up ...

Peggy Noonan was a speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and is a graceful essayist and good Catholic lady who happens to be a political conservative. I haven’t seen her in years but sometimes we exchange emails. She has written a book about how badly Americans need Patriotic Grace, the title of her opus, and I bought it just as the news of a Catholic archbishop being found strangled on the Brighton Beach boardwalk came in. The ...

In No Man of her Own, a 1932 black-and-white beauty, Clark Gable, playing a big-city shark tries to pick up a small-town librarian, the divine Carole Lombard, who was to become his wife later on. “Do your eyes bother you?” asks Clark. “No, not at all,” answers Carole. “Well, they sure bother me…” says Clark. What a great pickup line, graceful, respectful, full of humor. My father once ...

I usually find these debates demeaning, because they’re not exactly Lincoln vs. Douglas. But I must admit that in the debate with Biden, I found Sarah Palin’s legs absolutely wonderful… <object width=“425” height=“350”> <embed src=“http://www.youtube.com/v/58C8YsTmf_8” type=“application/x-shockwave-flash” width=“425” ...

NEW YORK—The war on terror, as the most inarticulate man ever to inhabit the White House calls it, has now lasted longer than World War II. And take it from Taki, it’s not going away, not in my lifetime, that’s for sure. Insurgencies have a tendency to wear out their enemy and eventually prevail. Malaya (1948-1960) is the only exception. (Thank you Col. Thompson.) In 1946 the French fought an insurgency in Indochina, ...

When I read that actor Robert Wagner had had a four-year-long affair with Barbara Stanwyck back in 1952, my first reaction was that of envy and more envy. Wagner is 77 this year and Babs would have been 101, so when they were canoodling together he was 22 and she was 47. Excellent. Perfect. Young men need older women for sex as much as older men need younger ones later on. It is nature’s fit, a perfect combination which ...

The party’s over, it’s time to call it a day. They’ve burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away. It’s time to wind up the masquerade. Just make your mind up, the piper must be paid. The party’s over, the candles flicker and dim. You danced and dreamed through the night, It seemed right just being with him. Now you must wake up, all dreams must end. Take off your make up, the party’s over, It’s all over, ...

GSTAAD—Walking up mountains is not only healthy, it gives a man time to think. In fact, climbing in solitude offers one marvellous inner adventures, with epiphanies being the order of the day. There are no boulders where I climb, just a lot of green, steep hills separated by gorges, with lots of cows to keep me company. About 15 years ago, I tried climbing up steep mountains tied to a rope, but it wasn’t for me. I ...