Author: Taki Theodoracopulos

According to W. Somerset Maugham, materially one must live on the razor’s edge between poverty and minimal subsistence in order to cultivate the life of the spirit. I’ve always respected Maugham’s wisdom and understanding of human nature, and Larry Darrell, in search of a Tao, is among my favorite fictional characters. Maugham wrote The Razor’s Edge in 1944, at age 70, an extraordinary achievement and way ahead of the times. The world was at war and here was an old closeted homosexual writing beautifully about the West’s inability to promote the good life through wealth. Twenty years later some people … Continue reading →

The wind is maddening and constant, and gets stronger as the sun falls under the horizon. The streets are lined with plastic and rubbish, the beaches covered with greasy bodies and sun beds, and ghastly music blasts away all day and night. Motor scooters without mufflers and cars choke the tiny roads leading to the center of town, where literally thousands of sunburned young people wearing expensive rags down tequilas with a thousand-mile look on their unshaven faces. Welcome to Mykonos, once a brothel of an island, now reverting to type after a 30-year period of being a gay paradise. … Continue reading →

Nestled under the Acropolis, snug and safe among the ancient ruins of a long-ago grandeur, Plaka remains the only protected area of Athens, with greedy developers as welcome as a certain Minnesota dentist at an Aspinall animal sanctuary. Not that many don’t try. I see signs on old and battered but beautifully classical houses asking for bids “to develop.” No harm in trying, I guess. With the economy in the toilet—horrid word, but necessary—anything can happen, and Greek law has never been sacrosanct when the loot’s right. Never mind. It’s 40 degrees Celsius, probably 50 under the sun on the … Continue reading →

I think back to my Greek childhood and longing for the once coziest and most romantic of cities overwhelms me. Actually it’s too painful to think back, all the blood spilled during the Communist uprising, the beautiful neoclassical buildings destroyed by greed and lack of talent, the impeccable manners of the people that showed respect for the elderly, the church, and the nation. They all went with the wind, that horrible sirocco from the south that has been used as an excuse for crimes of passion committed under its influence. This ache for a lost past is nothing new. Elsewhere … Continue reading →

I have signed an affidavit for a hearing this week in the High Court stating that Janan Harb was to my knowledge married to Fahd of Saudi Arabia, who later became head of that ghastly country until he ate himself to death. Abdul Aziz, Fahd’s youngest son, a fat playboy who drifts around the world with an entourage of 150 bootlickers, is challenging Janan’s claims, and in the immortal words of Mandy Rice-Davies, “He would, wouldn’t he?” Saudi camel drivers–turned–self-proclaimed royals do not like to pay for the mess they always leave behind their ample posteriors, and they definitely do … Continue reading →

Last Wednesday, June 24, Pugs held a luncheon in honor of our first member to depart for the Elysian Fields, or that large CinemaScope screen up above, Sir Christopher Lee, age 93. Pugs club is now back to 19 members, the ceiling being 21. Our president for life, Nick Scott—I actually was the first chief but was overthrown in a bloodless as well as voteless coup by Nick—gave a wonderful address while breaking yet another custom, this one about having ladies present. Our guest of honor was Lady Lee, Christopher’s widow. Now, there’s nothing more that a poor little Greek … Continue reading →

There’s nothing to add about the clowns in Brussels and Athens but a Yogi Berra pearl, “It ain’t over till it’s over.” The Greek drama will go on and on until the brinkmanship is exhausted. My guess is the EU will blink, and I write this early, a day before the “final” decision is taken in Brussels on Friday, June 5. Although Greek accounting arabesques have been known to shame the Bolshoi—Goldman Sachs taught the modern Hellenes how to cook the books and screw Brussels, something we are now paying the price for—we Greeks have contributed a few things in … Continue reading →

An operation on my hand after a karate injury has me reading more than usual, and even attempting Don DeLillo’s Underworld, but I soon give it up. Truman Capote famously said that On The Road was typing, not writing, but old Jack Kerouac was Jane Austen compared to some of the novelists of today. Making it sound easy is the hardest thing in writing, and I grant you that today’s modernists sure make it look easier than easy. But they’re also sloppy, self-indulgent and at times incomprehensible. What I don’t get is how one can enjoy a novel when the … Continue reading →

It’s as good as it gets; a light rain is falling on a soft May evening and I’m walking north on a silent Park Avenue hoping to get into trouble. 14,000 yellow taxis have turned Manhattan into a Bengal hellhole, blasting their horns non-stop, picking up or disgorging passengers in the middle of traffic clogged streets, speeding and failing to yield to pedestrians, as the Big Bagel law requires. But on the Upper East Side, on a balmy evening, the yellow devils are causing havoc downtown, so I almost find myself singing in the rain as I head north far … Continue reading →

New York  – “Gimme a BLT on rye and hold da mayo” is a great Noo Yawk sound. So is boid for bird, and toerty toird for 33rd street. True working class accents no longer exist in the Bagel, and one is far more likely to hear “Deme un BLT y guarde la mayonesa,” by our Dominican or Puerto Rican cousins. The fire escape is also going fast, and as some wit pointed out, the next time Tony woos Maria in West Side Story he’ll have to text. The outdoor fire escape is a classic piece of Noo Yawk architecture, especially … Continue reading →

Ah Spring, the spring of our frost bitten age. At the Polish Club in London, a wonderful place studded with portraits of Polish patriots who have fought and sacrificed for the West’s freedom. In this beautiful and heroic setting, your High Life correspondent gave a speech about what it’s like writing for the Spectator and Takimag, with some odds and ends about my life in general of fifty years ago. The big surprise turned out to be the turn out. Packed to the rafters with fifty or so turned down at the door. This was the work of Lady Belhaven … Continue reading →

Athens – I am walking on a wide pedestrian road beneath the Acropolis within 200 meters of the remaining Themistoclean wall and the ancient cemetery to eminent Athenians. One side is lined with splendid neo-classical houses, none of them abandoned but most of them shuttered and locked up. This is the area where once upon a time Pericles, Themistocles and Alcibiades – to name three – trod, orated and debated non-stop. Back in those good old days we Athenians ruled supreme. Reason, logic and restraint placed us at the head of the queue, and genius also helped. I am climbing … Continue reading →

Gstaad—Once upon a time, clergymen saw mountain peaks as natural steeples leading them ever closer to God. Doctors considered the mountains the best medicine for tuberculosis, while explorers saw them as rocks never before touched by humans. I thought of those good people while T-barring up the Eggli, in way below freezing conditions but in bright sunshine. For some strange reason, whenever I’m really cold, I try to think of the German 6th Army trapped in Stalingrad, numbed in body and mind by the cold, while Hitler sits toasty warm back home and orders them to fight to the death. … Continue reading →

The good news is that a Greek suppository is about to relieve the EU’s economic constipation. The bad is that there’s a Castro in our midst, posing—just like Fidel did 56 years ago—as a democratically elected populist. Back then it was Uncle Sam who was the bogeyman. Now it’s the EU. Back then the Soviet Bear came to Fidel’s rescue. Now it’s Putin. Personally, I’ll take Vlad over the faceless unelected Brussels gang anytime. The problem is Tsipras, a vulgar-sounding name if there ever was one. Add to it the fact that he has two sons, one named after Che … Continue reading →

I had a short chat with BBC Radio concerning the actor Jack Nicholson, whom I knew slightly during the 70s and 80s. Alas, it had to do with age, his and mine, 77 and 78 respectively. No, the man on the other side of the telephone did not ask me anything embarrassing. All he wanted to know was: Do women still come on to an oldie, or are they, as Jack Nicholson claims, a thing of the past? Well, for starters, I do not believe that Nicholson is telling the truth, that he’s now alone and fears he will die … Continue reading →