Taki

Tuesday

Taki

The day I ate a royal love letter

Our very own Roger Kimball made it possible. I am referring to The Last Alpha Male, the greatest book ever written except for the Bible, as a Greek critic by the name of Taki put it. It is written by yours truly and owes a lot to Harry Stein, himself a terrific writer, whose father happened to write a musical play by the name of Fiddler on the Roof. My problem was how to justify Don Giovanni behavior while married to a Penelope-like beauty. Roger put me in touch with Harry, who came to my rescue. Presto, the wars in Gaza and the Ukraine stopped overnight. Fighters put down their weapons and read about the last alpha male and his ladies. My spies tell me even the Donald asked for a copy thinking it was about him, but then threw it out as Air Force One took off from Palm Beach.

letter

Wednesday

Orson Fry

Biohacking and skiing at the Alpina Gstaad

Biohacking, one of the more bearable buzz words of recent times, refers to the practice of using science, technology and self-experimentation to improve the body’s function and performance. When I was recently invited to experience the Alpina Gstaad’s new three-day wellness program — designed to “biohack your ski trip for improved performance and mood” — I didn’t hesitate. Here was not only a chance to improve my disastrous skiing but also to restore my pitiful liver, which had taken a particularly heavy beating in the festive run up to 2025. What better place to kick off “Dry January” than a five-star spa tucked away in the Bernese Highlands?

gstaad biohacking

Thursday

Joan Collins and Taki

Hollywood, fist-fights and getting canceled

Introductions Scene: a drawing room in London. When the recording starts, Taki is already mid-anecdote... Taki: I was sent out to Monte Carlo to speak to Roger Moore. The Spectator offered to pay all my expenses. I said thank you, I’ll pay my own. I went and had a terrific drunken dinner with Roger who really spilled the beans, cos we were buddies. I came back. The tape was empty because I’d never turned the recorder on. Joan: I’d known Roger since I was fifteen, because my father was a big agent in London and I came back from school — oh, fourteen actually, because I left school at fifteen — and there’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen standing there. He came over and said, “How do you do? You must be Joan, my name is Roger Moore.

Joan Collins

Friday

Cockburn

Michael Avenatti is the latest Spectator contributor to be jailed

Which Spectator contributor will be jailed next? Taki and Michael Avenatti have both done time after bylining in these august pages — and Roger Stone only swerved his 40-month sentence by the grace of President Trump. It could be argued that The Spectator’s decision to publish Michael Avenatti was not our finest moment. The Creepy Porn Lawyer, as Tucker Carlson insisted on calling him, is not the best egg in the anti-Trump basket. But we believe in free speech, and Avenatti was eager to trash Beto O’Rourke and that’s always good idea.

michael avenatti

Friday

Freddy Gray

Out now: the June edition of The Spectator World

Sex sells, we’ve been told, and so — grubby hacks that we are — we have dedicated the June edition of The Spectator World to the subject. But this ain’t your average smut. On our cover, the brilliant Mary Harrington looks at how America’s young elites are turning against free love. Zoe Strimpel discusses her recent experiences on dating apps and wonders why young men seem to have lost interest in sex. Cosmo Landesman asks if women who claim to love pornography are faking it; Bridget Phetasy wonders why men’s magazines such as Playboy aren’t for men any more and Dominic Green takes a Freudian look at America’s race to the bottom. Beyond all the sex, the June edition features a variety of other subjects to arouse your curiosity.

june

Monday

Taki

Why Harvey Weinstein cried on the phone to me

Harvey Weinstein was a very sought after dinner guest back in the days before he was a convicted rapist. Mind you, he and I started out as mortal enemies, over a woman, needless to say. I won the first skirmish although I didn’t know it at the time. (The lady went home with me and Harvey badmouthed me to her.) Once I found that out I wrote in my New York Post column of the time that Weinstein was an enemy of good manners and good tailoring. He found it funny and approached me at a party I was giving with Michael Mailer in a downtown New York tavern. As he was known as a brawler, I stood up and got ready to rumble. But it was not to be. He graciously put out his hand and told me in front of witnesses that I had never done him any harm and that he wanted to be friends.

harvey weinstein