Buffoon leaders... and how we milked the EU, by veteran Greek columnist and commentator

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. Spoilt racist playboy who writes to annoy people with less money

The first test for any incoming editor of The Spectator is Taki: to sack him or back him? One of the magazine's longest-running columnists, his dispatches from the frontline of the international beau monde have achieved cult status, though he is as notorious for his racist rants.

Soon after Fraser Nelson took over last summer, he telephoned the 73-year-old columnist, announcing he had bad news. "But the bad news was that nobody had asked him to sack me," laughs Taki Theodoracopulos, from the end of a phone in Manhattan. To a professional irritant, this must be a blow, as there have been calls for Taki's head ever since he started the High Life column in 1977. The millionaire playboy has breezily called himself a "soi-disant anti-Semite" and peppers his conversation with words like "wop", "yid" or "dago"; yet he has survived seven editors and five proprietors. Tomorrow, he publishes an anthology of the past nine years, the last half of which has been relatively controversy-free. Has this been deliberate?
...
The son of a shipping magnate, Taki has never needed to work, yet wealth has not made him idle: in addition to his weekly Spectator column, he has four other columns, edits Taki's Magazine, and co-founded The American Spectator. The only break from his Spectator column was a spell in Pentonville, after he was caught trying to board a plane in possession of cocaine: "At least I got a book out of it."

His energy has also famously been channelled into his sex life, and his advice to lovelorn men is to pursue a girl until she gives in, even if it's out of sympathy. He is currently in pursuit of The Spectator's deputy editor, Mary Wakefield, though his chances are considered slim.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/whats-the-point-of-taki-if-he-isnt-offensive-any-more-1974383.html