James Innes-Smith | The Spectator columnists & writers

The joy – and occasional pain – of a fountain pen

Our new King isn’t the only royal to have lost his rag over a leaky pen, as happened when he was signing a visitors’ book at Hillsborough Castle near Belfast. ‘Oh God, I hate this,’ King Charles said, before handing the pen to his wife, Camilla, Queen Consort. ‘I can’t bear this bloody thing… every stinking time,’ he added. Tired of having to wash his hands after every warrant-signing session, the 10th-century Arab Egyptian ruler the Fatima caliph al-Mu’izz demanded his servants find him a writing utensil that wouldn’t leak everywhere. Courtiers set to work and soon a revolutionary new pen appeared that held ink in a reservoir. It allowed him to write at any angle without fear of leakages. There is plenty of evidence to suggest that Leonardo da Vinci constructed his own version of the fountain pen, which he used for technical drawing.

London’s best tasting menus

Once the preserve of only the fanciest of fancy restaurants, the tasting menu has come into its own post-pandemic. Set menus make economic sense for cost-cutting restaurateurs and their harried staff, of course – but customers benefit too, with no nasty surprises or bust-ups when the bill arrives. And for those of us who suffer from perennial food envy, tasting menus remove the gut-wrenching anxiety of having to choose between the 'succulent hand-glazed cod' and the 'succulently foraged kobe beef' – both it is. But pairing multiple dishes with distinctive wines and then placing them in some kind of coherent order takes real skill – so who does it best? For me, opting for a tasting menu is a bit like listening to an album in its entirety rather than skipping to the hits.

The utter misery of BBC’s Marriage

‘Who are these people and why should we care about them?' This is the most important question any screenwriter must ask before committing pen to paper. Sadly it's a question I failed to come anywhere near answering during the interminable 'realism' of the BBC’s much discussed (and much praised) Marriage. Sean Bean and Nicola Walker play Ian and Emma, an uptight midlife couple caught in the tedium of marital graft after 27 years together. The four-part 'drama' has been widely commended for showing the profound inanity of ordinary people's domestic lives. While I consider myself to be pretty ordinary, I failed to recognise either of these dullards as anything other than famous actors trying to appear real and failing miserably.

The lost charm of London’s St Giles

London's architectural landscape is changing at such a pace that it's hard to remember what's been lost beneath the acres of tarpaulin. Buildings I must have walked past a thousand times and that I could have sworn were important landmarks have been disappearing at an alarming rate. Despite the devastation there appears to be little in the way of pushback from harried, post-pandemic Londoners. How quickly we forget what our eyes once took for granted; the familiar razed without a second glance. The area known as St Giles, just east of Charing Cross Road and south of New Oxford Street, has suffered more ignominy than most. Once a bohemian enclave and the ramshackle heart of London’s music scene, it was also where my parents shared a flat and later married, and where I have spent the past couple of years.

London’s healthiest restaurants

Without 'drastic government action' a recent report has warned, obese adults in the UK are set to outnumber those who are a healthy weight within five years. By 2040 nearly four in ten adults in the UK, that's 21 million people, are projected to be obese, with 19 million classed as overweight. The so-called obesity crisis is costing NHS England more than £6 billion a year while according to a recent World Health Organisation report, within ten years Britain is set to become the fattest nation in Europe, overtaking both Turkey and Malta. Keen not to be seen to be too nannyish but knowing he has to do something if only 'to save our NHS' the government is caught between a rock and a heavy place. You know things are bad when Britain's most loveable chef Jamie Oliver starts wielding bowls of Eton Mess outside Downing Street.

Steve Coogan’s Alan Partridge problem

Is Steve Coogan a one trick pony? It's a question that has dogged the Mancunian actor's career ever since his preening Partridge flapped into the nation's affections over thirty years ago. Since then, with a couple of notable exceptions (his turn as Stan Laurel was a triumph), Coogan's projects have been little more than variations on a theme but without the genius of the source material. No matter how hard the actor tries to shake off his past with glossy Hollywood fodder, his polyester-pullovered alter-ego is never far from the surface. It's not just Coogan's diffident northern twang or the shifty owl-like eyes, it's the whole essence of the man – Hollywood can doll him up in Armani suits and capped teeth as much as they like but they can never take the Partridge out of Coogan.

Welcome to globalised paradise

'I remember when this was a dusty old coastal road with stunning views across the length of Seven Mile Beach' recalls my charming cab driver as we cruise along one of Grand Cayman's many spotless highways. That was back in the 80s before mass tourism and the financial sector barricaded the island's most bankable asset behind a ribbon of luxury hotels and apartment blocks. Back in the early 60s Grand Cayman, the largest of a three-island archipelago, was little more than a sparsely populated, mosquito-infested swamp surrounded by some of the loveliest beaches in the Caribbean. Pronounced CayMan by locals, this British Overseas Territory continues to be a land of extremes. While the summer heat is off the scale so too are the income disparities.

The truth about the anxiety epidemic

Knots in the stomach? An overwhelming sense of despair? Nervous, restless and tense? That'll be the anxiety talking and for good reason. What with the financial crash, austerity, Brexit partisanship, climate change catastrophising, social media derangement, pandemic pandemonium and now the possibility of a third world war, I'd be concerned if we weren’t all feeling a tad anxious. Indeed NHS leaders are now urging ministers to tackle what they are calling a 'second pandemic' of depression, anxiety, psychosis and eating disorders, brought about by recent events. Indeed, one study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry found that diagnoses of anxiety had tripled in young adults since 2008. It's right that we take mental illness seriously.

Fatherhood is a risk men aren’t willing to take

Recent reports that half of women in England and Wales are now childless by their 30th birthday reveal a worrying new attitude amongst Gen Z. Parenthood, to the younger generation, is the enemy of unfettered frivolity. Young women, we are told, would rather live for the moment than plan for the future. 'Being present' has become the mantra of the 'mindful' generation who see autonomy as the ultimate expression of a life well lived. But how complicit are men in this myopic 'me-only' utopia we have created for ourselves? Are women actively rejecting the sort of men who would like to settle down or have the sort of men who once yearned to settle themselves become cynical about taking the plunge? While both sexes feel trepidation about losing cherished freedoms, men are experiencing a much darker existential anxiety that isn’t simply about a loss of liberty.

How sausage dogs were weaponised in the war

Short of leg but big on personality, the eccentrically shaped dachshund is one of Britain’s most beloved pets. Originally known as the ‘dachs kriecher’ (badger crawler) or ‘dachs krieger’ (badger warrior), dachshunds as we know them today can be traced back to 15th-century Germany where they were bred primarily for hunting. With extended, sausage-shaped body, elongated snout and long whippy tail, the scent hound’s ability to flush out badgers and other smaller mammals became a highly prized trait. Sadly, these feisty creatures haven’t always been held in such high regard. During the first world war, ‘wiener dogs’ featured in anti-German propaganda. Although largely humorous, these poster campaigns led to a widespread disdain for the breed.

London’s most romantic restaurants

Get your credit cards out lads, it's that time of year again when we demonstrate our love via the medium of grub. Because this year the big day falls on a Monday many restaurants have extended their Valentine menus to cover the whole weekend. With any luck, this should free up tables for those naughty boys who forgot… (to book I mean). With so many London restaurants vying for your romantic dollar, here is a selection that manages to combine an amorous aura with adventurous cocktails and food fit for wooing. L'Oscar For those who like their romantic restaurants oozing with velvet and gold trim, L'Oscar, a boutique hotel on the fringes of Covent Garden will have you drooling before you've even sat down. Once the London headquarters of the Baptist Church, this remarkable 'Edwardian Free Baroque' edifice built at the turn of the 20th century is now a decadent art deco lovers' paradise filled with elegant period oddities.

In defence of road rage

A friend told me recently that the only time she and her husband get passionate these days is when they are yelling abuse at each other across the cup-holders of their Renault Hybrid. He complains that she drives like an anxious old lady while she's convinced he's an entitled prat behind the wheel. During every mangled gear change, every junction missed, every failed three-point turn each reminds the other of his or her imbecility. It's all displacement of course – these disproportionate attacks are never really about whether one of you forgot to indicate. Outside the confines of their hybrid, the couple in question live a life of quiet, seething resentment just like the rest of us. For all of us passive aggressive road users, driving under the influence of acrimony allows us the freedom to express our disconnectedness without fear of embarrassment.

What I’ve learnt about luxury

What do you look for in a luxury hotel? For me it's the quality of the pillows every time. You can keep your fancy hair products, exotic fruit bowls and hooded towelling robes; give me two perfectly puffy goose down pillows and I can forgive almost anything – well, maybe not a lumpy mattress. Luxury enticements don't come much more lavish than Dubai's Burj Al Arab, the self proclaimed 'seven star' hotel that featured on the BBC's Inside Dubai and wears its decadence on its sail-like sleeve. The Burj is the only hotel I'm aware of that offers a menu containing seventeen different kinds of pillow including an Anti-Ageing Premium Down option lavished with ‘traces of vitamins’. After some agonising indecision I personally plumped for the enticing 'Body Roll' filled with a combination of pure white goose down and siliconised, hollow fibre balls.

Spare me the celebrity Christmas memoir

Is there anything more dispiriting at this time of year than the dreaded 'celebrity' memoir – the publishing industry's annual two-fingered salute to all us starving mid-list authors? Last week I managed to weave my way through a heaving Waterstones, eventually arriving at one of those vast tables groaning with needy 'personalities'; there they all were, present and correct in their neat hierarchical piles (the higher the advance the bigger the stack). This year's roll call of vaguely familiar faces has been much the same as any other year. The garish covers all feature the usual cut-and-paste mug shots of bland variety artists in various stages of eyebrow-raised, what-am-I-like hilarity (I'm gurning back at you Michael McIntyre and Bob Mortimer); or worse, the feel-my-pain gaze of a 'star' yearning to share their 'truth'.

How having babies fell out of fashion

With all of our institutions now firmly under the iron fist of progressivism it was only a matter of time before social justice mission creep slipped under the doormat and into the home. You can only promulgate the idea that we live under a tyrannical patriarchy for so long before young people take notice and begin to lose trust in the whole idea of intimate relationships with the opposite sex. Fourth wave feminism has shifted its focus from the work place to male/female relationships and a growing underclass of men is turning its back on women by joining poisonous underground groups such as INCELS and Men Going their Own Way (MGTOW). Why would any young person choose to settle down and have kids against such a toxic backdrop? Well, increasingly they aren't.

The truth about plant-based food

There's an air of familiarity about the former head chef of Claridge's penchant for plant-based food. It was reported this weekend that he has left his role after the hotel passed on his plans for an entirely plant-based menu. All credit to Claridge's who are one of the few institutions not to have swallowed this particular culinary cool aid. And yet these sorts of gastro-themed spats are becoming all too common. The all-or-nothing attitude of many plant-based devotees has made dining out an increasingly divisive experience. Remember when the 'vegetarian option' meant making do with a cheese omelette and ethical eating involved skipping the prawn cocktail starter and going straight for the steak and chips? Order steak in a restaurant today and you risk a barrage of disapproving comments from fellow diners.

The problem with YouTube’s political adverts

Even a few seconds can feel like an eternity when your favourite Spectator TV debate is interrupted by a sweaty bloke in a bedsit flogging digital currency. YouTube understands how painful its ludicrous advertising interludes have become which is presumably why they invented the five-second skip button. Regular ads are bad enough but it's those twenty-minute infomercials that somehow manage to catch us off guard that really grate. How does YouTube know when I am least able to reach for the skip button? It happened again the other day during my morning shower; midway through a favourite song a perky female voice barged in to ask whether it was 'ok to call someone queer'. This didn’t sound like your average get-rich-quick scam – in fact it didn't sound like an advertisement at all.

Spectator Out Loud

Matthew Lynn, Tanya Gold, James Innes-Smith

13 min listen

Spectator Out Loud

Matthew Lynn, Tanya Gold, James Innes-Smith

13 min listen

On this week's episode, we’ll hear Matthew Lynn’s thoughts on how the gas shortages could lead to a very cold winter. (00:51) Then, Tanya Gold with a critical take on critics. (04:41)And finally, James Innes-Smith bigs up the bungalow. (08:58)Presented by Sam Holmes

Lateral thinking: the beauty of bungalows

We keep hearing about the importance of levelling up. Architects tasked with the responsibility of building new homes, however, might want to consider levelling across. With land prices at a premium, bungalows may not appear to be the most prudent use of limited space but lateral living has plenty to recommend it. Originally built for early European settlers in India, the first UK bungalows — from the Hindi word bangla, meaning ‘belonging to Bengal’ — appeared in Westgate on the north coast of Kent in 1869. These early examples tended to be austere holiday homes constructed from prefabricated corrugated iron. Over in the US, grander structures became increasingly popular with the Arts and Crafts movement of the early 20th century.

The trouble with being beautiful

It's National Inclusion Week when we all come together to 'celebrate everyday inclusion in all its forms'. This year's theme is 'unity' where 'thousands of inclusioneers worldwide' are being encouraged to 'take action to be #UnitedForInclusion.' In the bewildering world of identity politics, however, there is one group of excluded individuals you won't be hearing much about. As a demographic, they suffer from all kinds of discrimination and yet social justice activists seem uninterested in their plight. Unlike oppressed minorities, this particular group may be in the majority and yet they garner little in the way of sympathy from anyone, barring their mums, perhaps. As with race, gender and disability, physical attractiveness is an immutable characteristic born out of biological happenstance; unless we decide to go under the knife there is very little we can do about a wonky nose, droopy shoulders or a weak chin.

There’s more to the men’s movement than Incels

The horror of August's mass shooting by 22-year-old Jake Davison caused many commentators to point towards a dangerous underbelly of male disaffection. But what many overlooked was the fact that the shadowy underground group of disenfranchised males that inspired Davison to take up arms is part of a much larger network of male activism dating back to the late 1970s when the men's liberation movement split into two camps consisting of the pro-feminist men's movement and the anti-feminist men's rights lobby. Focusing on what they saw as male disadvantage, oppression and discrimination, the men's rights movement hardened into Men's Rights Activism (MRA), an informal network of online communities known as the 'Manosphere'.

The horror of country house hotels

With so many of us forced to holiday at home this year, that most English of institutions, the country house hotel, has been experiencing something of a renaissance. The number of guests desperate for a slice of upper crust hospitality after months of slumming it at home has rocketed so you may struggle to book even the humblest of maid's quarters this summer. That said, my advice is to steer well clear. For all their bucolic grandeur, these odes to outdated class structures have a tendency to trigger a toxic combination of unwarranted snobbery and 'what-can-we-get-away-with' mediocrity. The hushed, awkward reverence that insists we remain on our best behaviour makes me want to lob loaded cake-stands at the fake family portraits.

Is it any wonder that men are put off by the BBC?

Is it any surprise that research carried out by the corporation for its annual report found that more than a quarter of men feel that the BBC 'no longer reflects people like me'? In a concerted effort to redress gender imbalance men are gradually being airbrushed out. Across much of the BBC men have become something of a rarity. Many of the corporation's high-profile dramas are now female-focused, including the Pursuit of Love, I May Destroy You, Starstruck and Motherland. Female presenters dominate shows such as BBC Breakfast, The One Show and Songs of Praise. A rejuvenated BBC Three will be almost exclusively female led while Radio 4 has turned into one long episode of Woman's Hour. But you can hardly point the finger at the BBC; its female-centric programming reflects a cultural trend that is rife across society.

The death of masculinity

The Duchess of Sussex says she wants her father/son themed children's book The Bench 'to depict another side of masculinity — one grounded in connection, emotion, and softness.' This assumes of course that men aren't already connected, emotional and soft, which, as a touchy-feely kind of bloke I find a little off. Imagine if I had written a children's book about a mother/daughter relationship (that could never happen, of course) and then announced that I wanted to depict 'another side of femininity - one grounded in connection, emotion, and softness.' The outrage would probably be threefold - I'd almost certainly be harangued for presuming to understand the unique relationship between a mother and daughter; I might also be criticised for demanding that women pander to outdated feminine stereotypes while simultaneously insinuating that the female sex is by nature hardnosed, unemotional and lacking in empathy.

The enduring appeal of Friends

I would love to have been there at the original pitch meeting for Friends, 'So yeah, it's about a bunch of friends.' Pitching The Office must have been similarly brusque, 'It's about some office workers working in an office.' And The Simpsons? 'Oh yeah, that's the one about a family called… the Simpsons'. Like all great comedies, the premise for Friends is so simple it sounds almost facile. But embedded within the simplicity of the idea is the entirety of human experience; the joys, the sadnesses, the heartache and the tragedy; it's all there in Ross's remarkable range of expressions that ran from deep melancholy to boyish wonder. The nerdy Ross, played by David Schwimmer, along with his best buds Chandler, Rachel, Phoebe, Monica and Joey are back on our screens for the first time in seventeen years in a one off reunion imaginatively titled Friends: The Reunion (or as some are calling it, 'the one where they get back together').

The sad demise of Alan Partridge

One of my favourite Alan Partridge moments — and there have been many — is the now infamous scene from I'm Alan Partridge, where north Norfolk's most beloved DJ — Alan's words not mine — is chased down a remote country track by a psychotic stalker. On reaching a dead end our hero leaps over a fence and lands in one of those awkward forward lunges where in order to avoid tripping over you have to run to catch up with yourself. This brief but beautifully realised moment encapsulates everything that made this particular incarnation of Alan Partridge such an excruciating but enjoyable watch. Here we see the cowardly little man desperately trying to maintain a modicum of dignity as his world collapses around him. Indeed British situation comedy has always thrived on this simple but touching premise, think Captain Mainwaring, Harold Steptoe and Basil Fawlty — finickity little men with delusions of grandeur foiled by their own ludicrousness.

How to apply for a post-truth position

Anyone over the age of 35 would be advised to hire a translator before rifling through the jobs section of the Guardian. Looking for a role in education? You will need a first in doublespeak just to understand what it is you are applying for. When I clicked on a listing for an 'Infrastructure Support Officer' - not something I do very often admittedly - I was assailed by a tsunami of 'comprehensive, personalised, integrated, safeguarding of frameworks and best practices' masquerading as a 'vibrant and cooperative environment in which to work.' Having read the listing several times I am still no wiser as to what sort of infrastructure I would be supporting or why I'd need to be paid £75,000 a year for the privilege.

A brief history of ‘lived experience’

All experiences are lived, of course, but it seems some experiences are more 'lived' than others. Truth has become a moveable feast. This may seem like a contradiction. But this is where we find ourselves. How you define the notion of truthfulness is yet another signifier of where you stand in the increasingly wearisome culture war. Whether you see the subjectivity of lived experience as a progressive force for good or just another postmodern mash-up will depend on your age and political persuasion. Those who view experience through the lens of victimhood - mostly the activist young - tend to see objectivity as a tool of oppression. In an article on the Everyday Feminism website entitled 4 Reasons Demanding ‘Objectivity’ in Social Justice Debates Can Be Oppressive, the author even goes so far as to assert that: 'Objectivity is often a sign of privilege and distance, not expertise.

Why Gen-Z is turning its back on the BBC

Do 16-34 year olds still watch terrestrial TV? More importantly, will they still be watching in a year's time when BBC 3 re-launches as a linear station? Six years ago, the youth orientated channel switched to digital-only as part of a £100 million cost cutting measure. Since then they have produced a couple of runaway successes such as the all-conquering Fleabag, hence the decision to have another crack at broadening their appeal to a rapidly dwindling youth market where TV sets are a rarity and scheduling anathema. Once it is up and running again in January will the channel be able to fulfil its remit by appealing to a broad spectrum of younger viewers most of whom have already switched to subscription platforms? By clinging on to the anachronistic licence fee that no right minded millennial, let alone Gen-Z would go near given the choice, Aunty has already alienated the very audience it is desperately trying to woo.

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