Switzerland is now an enemy of the rich

The staff are back and all is well, as they used to say long ago in faraway places. The gardener and the cleaner are Portuguese, and they greet me, with their inherent dignity, from afar. The Filipina maid and cook almost gets me in a headlock trying to thank me for keeping her on salary while she rested at home. I shoo her away. Who does she take me for, a lowlife cheapskate like Philip Green? I didn’t hesitate to send them all home.

Mind you, I’ve taken such a shellacking on the stock market that I’ll soon be applying for a job myself, perhaps as an ageing gigolo to some fat old tart from Marienbad. I tango well and can waltz, so all I need to do is grow a pencil-thin moustache.

But I’ll start with the bad news. Michael Watts, the gentleman who brought close to 40 loyal Spectator readers up to Gstaad last winter to meet me, has died. His widow Alison wrote me a brief note to let me know, and my thoughts are with her. Speccie readers are special, and Michael and his friends are loyal subscribers. The whole thing depressed me no end: a very good and gentle man dies, while a ghastly old hag goes on television and says she wanted Boris to die. Why are leftist scum like her allowed to get away with such bull?

An email from Brisbane lifted my spirits. Ian Callinan is a long-time reader and he writes about the great Roy Emerson and other friends we have in common. I am unable to answer as I lose his message by pressing the wrong button. Oh, for the days of pencils with an eraser on top.