A violent ultimatum ended Giacometti’s brief flirtation with Marlene Dietrich
The artist’s jealous mistress threatened him with the Montparnasse Mob if he took things further, according to Desmond Morris
Thursday
The Battle of Arnhem wasn’t doomed from the start. It might even have been a risk worth taking
The prize was beyond price, and the operation very nearly succeeded. General Sir Mike Jackson examines the ‘what ifs’
The stubborn old Hanoverians saw new Gunpowder Plots everywhere
Even after Emancipation, anti-Catholic prejudice was entrenched in the monarchy, right up to the coronation of George V
Why do powerful men love to be spanked?
Spanking is back in the news. Le vice anglais was meant to be a dying art — a vestige of a time when men were more repressed, but it’s recently become clear that British men enjoy a thrashing just as much as they ever did. In the past few weeks a London barrister, Robert Jones, … Read more
Wednesday
Could John Bolton cost Trump his Nobel Peace Prize?
My, my, my. North Korea is in a snit over National Security Adviser John Bolton who urged it to follow the Libya model of total denuclearization. Everyone knows how that ended. The North declared yesterday that it finds Bolton “repugnant,” a sentiment that is actually widely shared around the world, and that it wants an … Read more
Why I’ll miss my friend Tom Wolfe
To some, Tom Wolfe’s death might seem a greater loss for readers on the right wing of American culture and politics, since he viewed himself as a conservative, very much in keeping with his upbringing in the Richmond, Virginia, of the 1930s and 1940s. His gentleman’s manners and soft-spoken demeanour recalled another era — a … Read more
Tuesday
Why Christopher Steele should spill the beans
Lawyers representing the ex-spook-turned-private-investigator Christopher Steele were in action yesterday at London’s High Court. In a rather convoluted turn of events, BuzzFeed, who published Steele’s leaked dossier on links relating to Trump and Moscow, is now seeking to question the author “on the dossier as a whole” because of the document’s importance in the “public’s … Read more
Tom Wolfe 1931-2018
Tom Wolfe has died at the age of 87. In 1998, William Cash interviewed the great author for The Spectator: Yes, Tom Wolfe does own one of those 12-room Upper East Side apartments, as he wrote in Bonfire of the Vanities, ‘the mere thought of which ignites flames of greed and covetousness under people all … Read more
John Bolton really is in charge
The opening of the U.S. embassy in Jerusalem was nothing short of a dark Mass. A ceremony that should have marked the monumental achievement of the Jewish people was instead consecrated in blood. Seated courtside was the man who perhaps more than any other made the embassy happen: Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate. Back in Washington, his man … Read more
Will Trump end the Mueller inquiry or will the Mueller inquiry end Trump?
May 17, 2017 started out as any other day in Donald Trump’s Washington. Men and women in suits with briefcases walked into work, ready to meet clients or do business. The day, however, proved to be the very beginning of Trump’s troubles, with the appointment of a special counsel to look into allegations of collusion … Read more
Monday
Does Mike Pompeo really think he can cut a good deal with North Korea?
The new secretary of state has already blundered during his short tenure.
Is Trump preparing to sell out South Korea?
Maybe President Trump has finally given up on his cherished dream of Vladimir Putin as his new best friend. It seems that Kim Jong-un is supplanting him in his affections. Even as Trump tries to up the ante with Iran, his top officials are playing kissy-face with North Korea. Fears are swirling in Washington that … Read more
Saturday
Trump is on a roll. But is it all artifice?
On June 12 Donald Trump will meet Kim Jong-un in Singapore. Trump is ebullient. “World Peace” is what he will seek, according his Twitter account. Singapore’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs is sounding a more cautious note: “We hope this meeting will advance prospects for peace in the Korean Peninsula.” Trump’s euphoric tone is more reminiscent … Read more
Review: Racer and the Jailbird. Terrible name, great film
Racer and the Jailbird is a terrible name for a film. It sounds like an unsolicited tribute to that sorrily misbegotten Seventies’ genre, the action-comedy buddy movie—like Freebie and the Bean (1974) or Smokey and the Bandit (1977). But it is not. Nor, though the trailers for Racer and the Jailbird misrepresent it as such, … Read more
Friday
Ben Shapiro, the child prodigy gone right
A day with the host of the fastest growing conservative podcast, as he addresses his biggest ever student crowd
What Donald Trump can teach us about dealing with bullies
I’ve been watching with interest the way Donald Trump deals with ‘awkward’ folk. He doesn’t muck about, that much is clear, and you know what? It works. He’s threatened to take the trade war to China, he’s vowed to “rain down fire and fury, the like of which the world has never seen” on North … Read more
John McCain is right about Gina Haspel
John McCain is a victim of hypocrisy. His allies in Washington and admirers in the national media praise him as the conscience of the nation, even as they betray him in his last desperate battle against the normalisation of torture. After a White House communications staffer, Kelly Sadler, joked that McCain’s views don’t matter because … Read more
Thursday
America is in the middle of a Russian influence campaign – not at the end
We need only look to London for lessons in how oligarchs apply pressure.
Review: My Fair Lady
In, Bartlett Sher’s revival, Eliza Doolittle’s stalwart character is the great triumph.
Europe’s leaders need Trump more than they wish to admit
America, meet your European allies in the effort to contain Iran: Emmanuel Macron of France, Theresa May of Britain, and Angela Merkel of Germany. Think of them as the Three M’s. Or perhaps the Three Wise Monkeys. Or even, as the Wise Monkeys are sometimes known, and would probably prefer to be called, the Three … Read more