High life | 18 January 2018

I spent the better part of two sunny days indoors writing about authenticity for a Greek magazine, a strange subject in view of how inauthentic politics are in that Brussels-run south-eastern outpost dotted with islands. Mind you, what is taking place in the West makes Greek politics seem ideal by comparison. The witch hunt is on and it’s as phoney as the one that burnt those poor women in Salem long ago. Thank God for the French actress who injected some badly needed truths into Hollywood’s bullshit. Catherine Deneuve signed an open letter published in Le Monde attacking the wave of ‘puritanism’ sparked by the allegations against Harvey and co.

It was about 15 years or so ago that I took part in a debate about whether Britain would be better off siding with Paris or Washington where foreign policy was concerned. The egregious George W. Bush was in the White House and Washington’s foreign policy was being run by neocons taking direct orders from Tel Aviv. The debate moderator was Peter Jay, as pompous as he was overbearing and taking himself as seriously as his former wife took Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, whom she had an affair with while Jay was our ambassador to DC. When my turn came, I said that London should follow Paris for the simple reason that Paris had Catherine Deneuve, Juliette Binoche and Irène Jacob, whereas America had Hillary Clinton, Shirley MacLaine and Jane Fonda. I think that won it for my side. At a French embassy drinks party afterwards, the ambassador thanked me for bringing up France’s women, as well he might. He couldn’t very well bring up the country’s fighting men in world war two, could he?