James Innes-Smith

‘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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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