GSTAAD—The fat cats were all over Davos last week, greedy bankers, self-important bosses of publicly-owned multi-nationals, craven hedge-funders, and shameless publicity seekers such as Bono and others of his ilk mixing freely with Gordon Brown, Al Gore, and Bill Gates. No, Carla Bruni did not attend nor did Amy Winehouse, who had better things to do—like being filmed smoking crack. Some 20 years or so ago, while in my ...

GSTAAD—I’ve been watching the Australian tennis open on the telly and boring myself to sleep. The modern game is too one-dimensional, the players too predictable. The pumping of the fist after a winner is now de rigueur, as is the tapping of the ball five, 10, in the case of Nadal, 16 times before serving. And the rallies are much too long.  The only relief from the utter boredom is Ana Ivanovic, probably the ...

This isn’t the first time I’ve written a story about CBRE, the multinational worth 28 billion and headed by Brett White, in this space. The behemoth, which did not do its due diligence and managed to lose the life savings of hard working people, most of whom are in their eighties, has finally come up with a solution. Instead of paying 35 oldies what they had invested—a bagatelle to CBRE, 35 million or so—they offered ...

GSTAAD—The row over Indonesian “hobbits” has split this beautiful alpine village in half. Alas, it began when I wrote something about the Olden, one of Gstaad’s oldest and most beautiful inns and its owner Bernie Ecclestone, of Formula I fame. The Olden was originally owned by the Mullener family since the turn of the last century, and run by Heidi Mullener for close to 50 years. Her cousin Rudy instructed the ...

Like Count Dracula, I used to love the night, hence nightclubs and late-night parties were the staple of my life. Back in the good old days when Eisenhower was president, I used to sneak out from my boarding school near Princeton University—50 miles from New York City—and go to El Morocco, the greatest nightclub of its time. Elmo’s, as it was called by those in the know, was zebra-striped, the great room circled by ...

What I've often wondered about is the hurt feelings of those whose inferior names have been chucked for more upmarket ones. If my son suddenly became Prince John-Taki Schoenburg-Hartenstein, I'd be awfully pissed off. In fact I'd cut him off and tell him to collect his allowance from the ...

Sitting high in the Alps watching American news channels can be a gruesome experience. For example, after four hours of wonderful powder-snow skiing, it is a shock to the system to see a red Indian-faced Bill Kristol (he should make up his fat and rather nonexistent neck, too, because the difference in color makes the dwarfish Kristol look even funnier than in real life)  pronounce Hillary dead on Tuesday evening just as ...

Okay, not really. But this is a column about the joys of nepotism. The Left-wing dictator I hated the least was Juan Peron, the Argentine strongman whose sartorial sense was as impeccable as his will to rule. Peron preened in front of the mirror for hours, and he looked as good in his waisted double-breasted suits as he did in his Prussian inspired uniforms.  In 1946 el Lider had installed his wife Evita as ...

I went to Palm Beach about one month ago to visit Conrad and Barbara Black with other friends of theirs but was advised not to write about it until after the sentencing. As Andrew Roberts wrote in the Notebook, “It was a masterclass in displaying dignity, good humour and charm under pressure.” If only the bums who so eagerly cast stones possessed a scintilla of Conrad’s courage, I might even force myself to consider ...

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert recently rejected overtures by Hamas for discussions about a temporary cease-fire. So what else is new? Israel’s ruling coalition wants peace as much as the neocons want it back in Washington. What I find surprising is that the Likudniks no longer care to even make a pretense towards peace. Take, for example, Annapolis and the US sponsored peace conference. In olden days the Israelis would go ...

George Will is a terrific old fraud, a pompous windbag as ludicrous as that other fraud, James Reston (thank God now boring people in that sauna-like place below) a man who genuflects to the rich and powerful such as Lally (medusa-face) Weymouth, but also an expert in kicking those unable to defend themselves. Such as Richard Nixon, among the best presidents ever. Only recently Will the catamite yet again deplored the ...

Some of you nice folk out there may remember that three weeks ago I wrote about a giant corporation screwing old ladies and retired people who have worked all their lives just to see their life savings go up in smoke. I will not bore you with details. Suffice to say that a giant corporation did not do its due dilligence and put “little peoples” savings into a deal which was much too risky for the kind of return ...

My distant ancestor Aesop (just kidding, folks) was fond of fables, so let me follow in his footsteps. This is the story of the Gadfly and the Pervert. Norman Finklestein was a Maoist revolutionary when young, which he claims bedeviled his academic career. It took him 13 years to get his doctorate from Princeton but it wasn’t his Maoism that kept him back. Anything but. Instead, it was his analysis of Zionism. After a ...

So there you have it. Conrad Black gets six and one half years in the pokey for—as far as I’m concerned—absolutely nothing, except for the fact he saved a moribund group of British newspapers, enriched his investors and stockholders, as well as himself, and refused to bow down to left-wing envious hacks who wanted him to eat humble pie once publicity-seeking prosecutors decided to emulate Rudy Giuliani and make ...

The most common rule of thumb for the ideal club is the one where all one’s friends are members. This can present a problem for those with no friends at all, only acquaintances. I know a few people like that, but what is amazing is that they do belong to clubs. One such fellow is among the greatest shits ever to wear a ...

This must feel like a leg-deadening thwack on poor old Poddy. Norman Podhoretz, first in line of warmongers—as long as none of his kith or kin have to do the fighting—must feel in a tizzy these days. A new National Intelligence on Iran concludes that the Islamic Republic’s enrichment of uranium has “long been unrelated to a nuclear weapons program.” I wonder what the Pod will do next? He wants ...