Taki Theodoracopulos
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Taki Theodoracopulos (born August 11 1936), better known as Taki, is a Greek-born right-wing journalist and writer, living in Switzerland, London, and New York. His column "High Life" has appeared in The Spectator for the past twenty-five years, and he has also written for National Review, the London Sunday Times, Esquire, Vanity Fair, the New York Press, and Quest Magazine, among others. In 2002 Taki founded The American Conservative magazine with Pat Buchanan and Scott McConnell. He is also publisher of the British magazine Right Now!.
The son of a self-made Greek shipping magnate who served in both the Greek armed forces during the World War II Balkan campaign of 1940–1941 and the anti-German resistance movement, he is a descendant of a titled family from the Ionian island of Zante. Taki was educated at the Lawrenceville School and the University of Virginia, and is married to Princess Alexandra Schoenburg. He has a daughter and a son, Mandolyna and John-Taki, and one grandson, Taki Tancredi.
Taki is well-known for his traditionalist views, referred to as reactionary by some, and which he is never shy to share.
He is also an outspoken critic of the invasion of Iraq, and reserves particular venom for the neoconservatives, such as David Frum, William Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, and John Podhoretz. He is also exceptionally vocal in his criticism of vulgarity in both the media and in contemporary professional sports. Some of his more controversial statements include articles on contemporary immigration policy; they have been described as rather inflammatory comments on ethnic minorities by some.#redirect
Taki is a former captain of the Greek karate team, has competed in the Davis Cup and is a keen skier. As an avid sailor, he has owned a series of sailboats and has expressed contempt for modern "gin-palace" cruisers. Taki is also known for a lifestyle, which reportedly revolves around dinners, parties, alcohol, gambling, fast cars, and the pursuit of women. In this he reflects his open admiration for Ernest Hemingway. His view of masculinity has been characterized as timeless by some and as old-fashioned by others.
In 1984 Taki was arrested for cocaine possession at Heathrow Airport, for which he served a three-month jail term in England's Pentonville Prison. His memoir Nothing to Declare came out of that experience.
Taki has been accused of ethnic slurs by the left-wing publication The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,,1331882,00.html The Guardian] leader 21 October 2004 In 2003 Scotland Yard investigated complaints over a column he wrote in The Spectator that referred to a shooting incident in the north of England.[The Spectator], 11 January 2003 However, the Yard's "Diversity Directorate" decided not to press charges.
Taki's behaviour has led him into a good number of fights and altercations over the years. This includes brawls on the streets of Manhattan, karate matches in the Pentonville Prison rec room, and recent confrontations over women in the ski resort town of Gstaad, Switzerland.#redirect
He was prominent in the campaign to free the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whose arrest he considered inconsistent with the rule of law.
Quotations
Some of Taki's comments.[The Independent] 13 May 2006On New York City's Puerto Ricans
- "A bunch of semi-savages ... fat, squat, ugly, dusky, dirty and unbelievably loud. They turned Manhattan into Palermo faster than you can say 'Spic'."
- "Democracy is as likely to come to bongo-bongo land as I am to send a Concorde ticket to my children."
- "What politically correct newspapers refer to as 'disaffected young people' are black thugs, sons of black thugs and grandsons of black thugs ... West Indians were allowed to immigrate after the war [and] multiply like flies."
- "Not that I'm calling Cherie Blair a whore. She couldn't be one even if she wanted to; not good-looking enough."
- "She, too, could not make a living from the world's oldest profession because of ugly looks and terrible ankles."
- "I'm a family man, a provider, I pay my taxes, I'm white (although always sun-tanned) ... I inherited from my old man ... I employ people, I own a yacht ... you name it, I'm guilty of it."
- "In Cool Britannia we don't send the son of a left-wing prick like Straw to jail for dealing [drugs] we vote him president of the Oxford Union instead. (Apparently he is as much of a dictator as his father, and just as phony)."
- "[They] are, of course, the masters of the direct lie, able to look straight into the camera and tell incredible whoppers that would make Mother Teresa blush. The man [Tony Blair] is pathetic, almost on the level of Bill Clinton, except for the hair."
- "Hislop deals in ruining people's lives through falsehoods, half-truths and gossip ... When that court high up in the sky gives the final verdict, the poisoned dwarf will come off second best."
- "Hislop is a dwarfish Quasimodo who scares not only the horses, but also ladies from polite society and especially children. He should not be permitted outdoors during sunny days and school holidays."
By his own admission, due to his strong criticism of the Israeli government and its supporters in the United States, The Spectator no longer permits him to write about Israel and Jewish affairs.
Books
- Taki, High Life, selected by Andrew Cameron, illustrated by Michael Heath. London: Viking, 1989. ISBN 0670829560
- Taki and Jeffrey Bernard, High Life, Low Life, introduction by Richard West, edited by Cosmo Landesman. London: Jay Landseman, 1981. ISBN 0905150279
- Taki, Nothing to Declare: Prison Memoirs, London: Penguin, 1992. ISBN 0140132562
- Taki, Princes, Playboys & High-Class Tarts, foreword by Tom Wolfe, illustrations by Blair Drawson. Princeton: Karz-Cohl Publishers, 1984. ISBN 0943828619
Notes
External link
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