A Trifecta for Symposia: Monaco, Fonda and the Windsors all in one day. All irresistibly appeal to the me, nurtured on a subscription to Photoplay in the 50s.

By the by did you ever notice how mentally unbalanced people always blame their parents for their misery well into old age?

Nothing is more demeaning than being a gossip or society columnist--if you're not as rich as the subjects you write about. Believe me they only view you as an hors d'oeuvre. The same observation can apply to journalists like Tina Brown who feel they are "the elite" but actually have absolutely no power...except to attack their own profession. I know -- I was there for 20 years.

I spent a busy weekend with Queen Mary and George V thanks to Jas. Pope-Hennessy who was in total cahoots with the Royals when researching his book. Guess there are worse cahoots to be in. I rather adored the non child centeredness of the times; the stifling infantilism of our own culture largely created by capitalism's realization early on in the information age that children, dogs and sex sell. Shudder.

Alors-- the press has discovered that universities harbor 70% left wingers. In my experience it was a bit higher. Thank goodness the Churchill Affair has brought this to light!Good old Berkeley ever the progressive is allowing him to speak. When something like this occurs I revert back to my social awareness of the 70s, which in the last decades meant nothing in this country.

William Grimes discusses in the Times today the dull proliferation of contemporary memoirs....these ordinary jamocks (A Chicago word) are not Saint Simons but only celebrate their defects: uglyness, fatness, abusededness, etc. Speak about niche marketing! There are enough reading homo sapiens around to buy these "I know whatcha mean" books.

Adorable Bobby Short just died. He was a wee bit of a lappish-dog of extremely rich New Yorkers and would probably have dissolved into anonymity had he ever stopped playing the piano. He undoubtedly knew this and probably had a sort of reverse snobbery about those he entertained.

Regarding that pull the plug case that is all over the papers, I say if there is even the most infinitesimal amount of doubt regarding consciousness then don't bloody do it.

Back to something less relevant merci: I actually saw a crinoline in a dress store the other day which led me to reflect that all these Women in the Arts or Women of Achievement Awards are conceptually rather like Chimps as Artists or .....oh you get the point!

I have just started to read the heavy tome Queen Mary by James Pope-Hennessy. Before attaining page 1 of the narrative we were made sadly aware of the fact that in the past, yay right up to 1955 when the author started researching his subject, letters, daily journals, diaries, memoirs were an integral part of life. Today the only record we will have of 2005 will not be so much a reflection of refined sensibility as what those thugs in Hollywood choose to feed to the upper classes (who are no longer patricians) as well as the plebes.

The comedy of wine snobbery or oenophilism is summed up in a ridiculous film Mondovino. Wine is wine and there are gradations in quality but from my first tasting in a Cambridge college in 1966 until my sales stint at Sherry-Lehman in 2002 I have always known that most of it is "in the head" and that after two glasses it all basically tastes the same.

Just when you think you're alone in the universe of thought someone like Bloomberg comes along and buries religion where it belongs -- with all the other relics of tribal crap.

I have always suspected that the Bushes and Clintons and all those characters in politics only paid ridiculous lip service to the idea of a white bearded father figure sitting in clouds. Only emotionally disturbed actors like Jane Fonda actually believe this....no wonder Turner divorced her.

How much easier it is to have nonsensical cultural opinions.No wonder no one reads this. Thus I should comment on Kofi Annan's bowing at Arafat's grave but there is enough impotent scribbler's outrage at this. What is interesting is how he has metamorphosed from a beloved Barbara Walter's Hamptons Houseguest to an outcast because he doesn't have the correct ideas.

Sartre's 100th birthday. He was the hero of my youth and I have always loved the old wall-eyed misanthrope (who can ever forget Simone's description of him huddled in a fuzzy orange fur coat writing, always writing, during the War?) . His autobiography the absolute ne plus ultra best in all literature -- Les Mots-- brief, comical, and ultimately an admonition that all self assessments should run under 100 pages. Someone please tell that to all those memoirists who are always from ignorant families from Texas. God!

For the first time in 30 years I have subscribed to the NY Review of Books; speak of earnest writers. What in the world was the point of Oliver Sacks' reminiscences of Francis Crick and all that talk of his incandescence? The Bill Moyers piece as peculiar as the man, he who has a journalist's reverence for "knowledge" whatever that is.

Can't read The Sun anymore. It is so reactionary (see Warren Kozak on universities) and so art-laden it is gagging. Well anyway my dilemma about the latter has been solved. The whole subject is conceptually boring and staggeringly commercial. No More Art!

The Sunday New York Times is so good it takes your breath away. Who are all these earnest people writing about earnest subjects, taking them so seriously? We need these kind of people inthe world but I am thankful not to be one of them.

I have decided to write a book about Queen Mary of Teck. Today's situation in England would have been impossible without her influence on the young Princess Elizabeth. It is the secret, the key to this bizarre anachronism.

Gombrich and Fry hit it on the head years and years ago: basically if you are not an art student you cannot relate to totally abstract art. The merest representational suggestion can redeem it. Some of the only palatable art around today is German painting that uses photography on the large scale and tampers with it with oil or other substances. We mean the Richters not lunatics like Beuys.

Symposia does not go to movies anymore but was amused to see that the Oscar for Best Actress was given to a Hillary Swank who wolfed down greaseburgers instead of Beluga and Blue Points after the ceremony. We are a indeed nation of trailer park peasants.

The only meaningful title for a book on contemporary art is "Tangibles"; that's all the products are. Like jewelry or gold only alot uglier. The supply for tangibles is low so some savvy businessmen and gallery owning girls or "consultants" or "critics" bullshit enough to imbue these ugly objects with value.