Gstaad is a very chic place and, alas, getting chicer by the minute as the nouveaux riche Russians and oily kleptocratic Arabs are closing in. Thinking about the way our alpine village used to be, I’m reminded of the time I spent here with Bill Buckley and what he represented when he came on the American political scene—a fresh voice full of promise, and an educated and cultured one at that. I’ve written a memoir of ...

When I wrote Pat Buckley’s obituary last spring, I had a pretty good idea that Bill would follow her sooner rather than later. I happened to be with him the day she died, along with his brother James and sister Priscilla, and I was taken aback by Bill’s unembarrassed weeping. At her memorial service at the Met, he was more in control, but one could tell that he no longer wished to live. I often went up to Stamford ...

That phony story about John McCain and Vicky Iseman, which the New York Times ballyhooed as an “exclusive,” is so typical of the Old Bag. But Bill Keller’s (the executive editor of the Times) response, that he stands by the story and the rest of the bull, brought back memories. During the ’80s in London, one of the town’s most…er…shall we say receptive-to-male-charms young woman was one Emma Gilbey, a ...

Here is good news. For any of you out there nostalgic for the lovable extra terrestrial, NASA is beaming out songs into deep space trying to lure anything that might be out there to our shores. The bad news is that scientists warn that transmitting songs could put the earth at risk of an alien attack--If some terrestrial hears the lyrics of a rapper, or listens to the boring tunes of the Beatles, our goose is cooked. Here's a ...

I knew that this administration makes the gang that couldn’t shoot straight look like criminal geniuses, but I never realized just how dumb the Bush-Cheney gang truly is. When I saw Bush announce that Uncle Sam has recognized Kosovo, it reminded me of those moronic Englishmen who had seen the murderous Stalin in action against his own people who had returned home and told the world they had “been over into the future ...

It all began when PM Constantine Karamanlis named his old friend Mr. Zachopoulos as the general secretary of the Ministry of Culture. Zachopoulos, a fatty and rather short even for a Greek, was married, but began an affair with his secretary once ensconced in his powerful role. The secretary, too, was a fatty, so it was a natural, as they say in Hollywood. But then something happened, and the secretary decided to videotape ...

His original name was Battenberg, but his great uncle changed it to Mountbatten and his grandfather to Windsor. He is now Andrew Windsor, and his royal title is HRH Prince Andrew. He is the Queen of England’s second son, a spoiled, rather thick, toothy, and overweight golf fanatic whose wife ran off with an American “financial adviser” who was photographed sucking her toes in St. Tropez 15 years or so ago. He and ...

Back in 2004, traditional conservatives were faced with navigating between a Charybdis and a Scylla by the names of Bush and Kerry. On one side lurked something quite monstrous: a self-described conservative who fiddled as the federal government grew to obscene proportions and who allowed sofa-samurai with names like Wolfowitz, Perle, and Kristol to talk him into an unending occupation of Babylon. On the other side swirled the ...

I never thought I'd see the day where I would agree with anything Ted Kennedy had to say, but he hit the nail on the head when he finally admitted that the Clintons—because we will have a dual presidency if that woman gets elected—are not only demonizers of their opponents—any opponent, even if our Lord Jesus came down and decided to run—but also have a propensity to lie even when the truth serves them ...

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 ...