Liz and I have been having an affair for years. Pete understands and is envious.

The only recognized responsible gossip writer is Liz Smith and she, and only she, is qualified to disseminate the dish.

Here’s a juicy bit: something Liz has tried to keep secret … she’s an intellectual. Celebrities don’t interest her all that much. Check her reading table: piled high with biography and literary fiction. She reads history with the depth and breadth of a scholar. Who’s her idea of the ideal dinner partner? Not Clooney or Pitt (though she can make do), but Yale University Professor Harold Bloom, American author, intellectual and literary critic. Author of the Western Canon. Now you know.

There is a plot. Many are in on it. Falling cranes in New York City last year, crashing planes this past month, the meltdown of the world economy, the wall on the West Bank, the coming of 2012, and the secret, hurried building of top-of-the-line condo developments in private stretches of Antarctica.

I can’t say much more, but — does Armageddon ring a bell?

Liz’s boyfriend is a lot younger than she is. A lot. He’s very cute and very smart, but he’s too young to buy her a drink and she can’t take him to the real Oscars. Only a few of us know him and we sneak him into our parties. When he’s a little older he’ll be a thriller, though.

I heard that the Post let Liz Smith go. But don’t repeat it. I’m sure it’s just a silly rumor.

Why are we wOw dames making such a fuss about Liz’s so-called firing? Liz is fired up now and has simply moved on and away from people too stupid to recognize that you can’t budge or topple a landmark. Historic landmarks are recognized only by those who know quality. Dopes don’t get it. You can’t move the Statue of Liberty (tourists won’t come) or the Brooklyn Bridge (people will fall into the water). And so Liz remains as always a boldface name of her own making, a statue decrying the emptiness of anonymity and glorious glow of presence, a bell that rings "take notice." I’m Lizzie. Our Liz will always be heard from loud and clear. The secret is she has not been fired, she has been exalted to legend status and she reigns untouchable.   

I agree with Candice that ONLY LIZ knows all — and knows how to disseminate it with great style and class. Since I left New York, I have been forced to go online to the Post to get her column. Now I can go straight to wOw!