Foreign Affairs

Twenty years ago I wrote an article in The American Spectator titled "American Women Make Lousy Lovers." It was all about femininity, or the lack of it, in militant feminists, and had nothing to do with the sexual act whatsoever. Needless to say, the title was noticed by various television producers?who of course did not bother to read the article, but became very eager to have me come over to America and face the music. I was in Greece at the time, busy preparing for my swan song as captain of the Greek national karate team and about to compete in the world championships in Cairo. The last thing I needed to do was to fly all the way across the ocean to face some hysterical American females. But you know how it is. The hucksters get to you through flattery and whatever else they do, so presto, there I was flying to Chicago to appear on the Phil Donahue show, followed by the then local Oprah Winfrey in Baltimore, and on to Indiana for an appearance at the university, defending my views.

Mind you, it was first class all the way, plus a suite and a limo, all paid for by the network. The only thing I remember about the trip was how dumb Donahue was, the toe-curling corniness of Oprah and that little old lady who came up to me and told me how much she agreed with me as I was leaving the Donahue set. (It was Lana Turner, a real victim of men, with various hubbies taking liberties with her hard-earned moolah.) Basically my argument was that we in Europe treat our women better than the Americans treat theirs; we cheat like hell, but do not trade them in when they're past a certain age, but put them on pedestals instead. Oh yes, I almost forgot. We also pay for them and do not expect them to work, but to look good. I mentioned Jackie Onassis as a perfect geisha-wife.

Actually, I enjoyed myself, especially when I got Donahue?a real bleeding-heart liberal?spluttering with rage. Just before the commercial, I asked him how it felt to leave a wife and kids to marry some young actress, as he had done. During the commercial he told me it was a cheap shot, but I pointed out to him that what he had done was cheap, and what I had said was the truth. All this while shouting in front of an audience made up mostly of old women who turned against the Irishman and applauded me.

The reason I bring all this up is the recent landmark ruling by the High Court in depressing old Blighty on press freedom. A very famous footballer who twice cheated on his wife faces being named and shamed by the ruling after he took legal action to stop a newspaper from identifying him or his two blonde lovers. The footballer, or soccer star as they're called over here, has been given three weeks to convince the House of Lords, the highest court in the land, that neither he nor the blondes?a lap dancer and a nursery school teacher?should be named. When the Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf delivered his pro-press ruling, I thought he was doing it to boost English morale, which has been very low recently. In other words, to make it public that some Englishmen enjoy doing it with women, because as everyone knows, 97.3 percent of all Englishmen prefer doing it with their own sex or their own hand.

No sooner had the scandal sheet been forbidden to name our hero that the yellowest press this side of Islamabad tore into the judge who originally ruled for the footballer. "This is not about someone's sexual conduct, it is about the public's right to know what is going on," thundered Woolf. How was that again? Since when does the public have any right to know what someone does underneath the sheets? Now that buffoon Woolf says that how a footballer chooses to spend his time off the field must have "a modicum of public interest."

Personally, I think the judge is trying to kiss the media's ass, no ifs or buts about it. If a married man chooses to seduce other women, it only concerns his wife and the sweet young things, no one else. The footballer, or love rat, as the press has dubbed him, met the teacher in a pub and told her he was unmarried. Again, so what else is new? Since when are men not supposed to speak with forked tongue while pursuing a bird? To the lap dancer he said he was unhappily married. The silly young thing fell for it. Now the feminists are after him. Poor guy. The one time an Englishman gets laid with the opposite sex and all hell breaks loose. In France, Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece, the "love rat" would have been accorded a parade and given a raise. In England he is being blackmailed by the women and rubbished by the press.

Having mistresses and girlfriends is natural for a European, even an American. The reason I loathed Clinton's womanizing was because he treated women badly, and they also looked so awful. If I owned a soccer team, I'd hire the love rat in a jiffy.

P.S. I want to apologize to my great buddy Peter Brimelow, whose father fought in Gallipoli and who has pointed out to me that 120,000 Brits were killed in that disastrous campaign, along with thousands of Australians and New Zealanders. Sorry, mate.