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Bedales School – a progressive, co-educational public school in the heart of Hampshire – is well-known for its famous alumni. Lily Allen, Sophie Dahl and Minnie Driver were all educated there, and celebrity parents include Mick Jagger, Jude Law, Jeremy Paxman and Boris Johnson.

Such an institution, and such a clientele, will inevitably attract media attention. It is no surprise, therefore, that the school frequently has to endure the ignominy of having its dirty laundry made public. When six students were thrown out for drugs offences last year, the story made the national headlines; when two more were expelled last summer for “having sex in a sandpit,” it caused even more of a furore.

The novelist Amanda Craig – who herself went to Bedales forty years ago – was among the most vociferous critics of her former school. Writing in the Daily Mail, she recounted how she was sexually assaulted by a gang of boys while walking back from an evening assembly. From then on, she writes, she was “relentlessly bullied,” and became “tense, white-faced and desperately lonely.”

Last week, as Bedales’ writer-in-residence, I had the opportunity to assess it from the inside. I spent five days leading workshops, speaking to the literary societies, meeting children of all ages for one-to-one tutorials, lecturing and advising staff. And although I concede that my time there was limited, what I saw had little in common with the Bedales of Amanda Craig four decades ago. Continue reading on the Independent website

Media speculation ended today with the announcement that in early 2012, Apple will launch a new device called “iPen.” The face of the campaign will be the British writer Jake Wallis Simons (32), the company confirmed.

Details of the new product are sketchy. According to Apple sources, the device will be “any size and scale between a regular biro and a felt-tip,” and will “come fully charged with iInk, giving users 134 hours writing time right out the box.” iPen will also have an extraordinary idling time of at least two years. It will be compatible with any sort of paper or card, although the internet is buzzing with rumours that Apple will also launch an “iPaper” and “iCard.”

“Just think,” said Jake Wallis Simons, speaking for the first time in his role as an ambassador for Apple. “Within two years we could be writting an iLetter on iPaper with our iPens, putting it in an iEnvelope, and dropping it into an iPostbox. The possibilities are endless. This really is the new frontier.”

But the device is not without its detractors. The American technology website CNET released a statement yesterday welcoming the iPen to the marketplace, but voicing concerns about Apple’s strategy to ship it “only with black iInk for the first six months.” This makes the produce “unnecessarily limited,” and could lead to “user dissatisfaction,” it said. The issue could particularly affect teachers, who “would wait to purchase iPen until red iInk is introduced.” CNET also expressed concerns about “compatibility issues,” shedding new doubts about how well iPen may synch with other Apple products. As for PC users, CNET said, they are “totally in the dark.”

For Apple fans, however, this development marks the next step in Apple’s extraordinary story of innovation. “I can’t wait to get my hands on iPen,” said a chap called Steve, a self-confessed Apple fanatic, from his tent outside the Apple Store in Covent Garden last night. “iPen’s instant-on feature will enable me to make notes instantaneously, without having to boot up my Macbook or unlock my iPhone. iPen is 100% wireless, and can work on anything – even the back of my hand.” He also expressed enthusiasm about the new range of iPen cases which will soon be available online.

“This has come at the right time for me,” said Jake Wallis Simons, the new face of the iPen campaign. “I have long used Apple products in the hope that I will one day regain the usability I previously enjoyed with old-skool paper and pens. Now with iPen and iPaper, Apple has scratched that itch. Thank you, Apple!”

Jake Wallis Simons (32), a novelist and journalist, has recently been approached by the Romanian Secret Service, the Serviciul de Informaţii Externe (SIE).

“They made contact with me in an Apple Shop, of all places,” says Simons. “A man in a trenchcoat and 1950s fedora offered me a circa 2005 32GB iPod in return for my services. At first I didn’t know which Agency he was from. Then he asked me to come to his house for a bowl of  mămăliga and a chat, and I knew he could only be from the SIE HQ in Bucharest.”

Mămăliga, a cornmeal mush served on its own or as an accompaniment, is a popular dish in Romania.

At first, Simons says, he was tempted. “I’ve always liked mush, whether cornmeal or otherwise,” he says. “And an iPod from 2005 is practically a collector’s item.” Moreover, he continued, he was getting desperate; recently, as blog readers will appreciate, he suffered rejection from both MI6 and the Russian secret service, the Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации.

However, Simons’ bubble was burst when the role he was being offered became clearer. “I had assumed they wanted me to be an Agent,” he explains, “but gradually I realised that they wanted me to Teach English As A Foreign Language (TEFL) to their operatives in Bucharest, at a rate of £3.50 per hour.” After brief consideration, the writer declined.

This morning, the SIE released a statement in which they denied any role in the debacle and blamed the “overactive imagination of the novelist.”

“We cannot be held responsible for what calamity may befall the writer if he dies not desist from spreading such malicious untruths,” Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu, Director of the Agency, did not say. “Rumours that I have a poison-tipped umbrella are likewise completely false. But if I did have one, I would not be afraid to use it.”

If Hannah Arendt—the great political theorist, critic of totalitarianism, and sometime lover of Martin Heidegger—had not died from a heart attack on 4th December 1975, today would have been her 105th birthday.

Arendt would doubtless have had mixed feelings about 2011. This year marked a half-century since the trial of Adolph Eichmann, one of the architects of the Final Solution. Reporting on the trial from Jerusalem, she developed the ideas for her most influential book, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality Of Evil. And 2011 is, of course, both the tenth anniversary of 9/11 and the year in which Bin Laden met his end at the hands of American commandos.

To point out that the phrase “the banality of evil” is often overused is itself somewhat banal. Whenever a high-profile tyrant is brought to justice, headlines groan with the phrase. The New York Times used it in connection with Saddam; TIME magazine used it about Bin Laden; and when Gaddafi gets his comeuppance, it will almost certainly be used about him, too.

Or rather, misused. As Elisabeth Young-Bruehl points out in her excellent Why Arendt Matters (Yale University Press, 2006), the phrase is “predictably and reverently invoked—and completely misunderstood.” It doesn’t simply refer to an evildoer’s lack of charisma. It neither absolves criminal responsibility, nor suggests that we would all do the same under the circumstances. Rather, it expresses a complex reading of how murderous ideologies can take root. Continue on the Prospect website

Of all the recipes in The Aphrodisiac Encyclopaedia — a book of sexy cooking by the restaurateur and bon viveur Mark Douglas Hill — “Roast Iguana with Chipotle and Oregano Marinade” is the most exotic. The iguana, Hill writes, is revered in Central America as a “paragon of virility” and feasted on by libidinous Nicaraguans during their Holy Week.

“You can grab an iggy at any pet shop,” he explains when my wife Isobel and I join him at home in Bloomsbury, Central London, for an afternoon of aphrodisiac cooking. “The tricky part is slaying it. My method is to put some Chopin on, feed the creature some beaten egg and brandy, then hack at it with an axe.”

For a long moment we almost believe him. “OK, OK,” he says at last. “But I have eaten iguana. Did you know they have two penises? That is absolutely true.”

Mark Douglas Hill — self-confessed “epicurean, glutton, sybarite and sensualist” — knows these things. His conversation is peppered with similar morsels of trivia. Within half an hour I have learnt that 10th-century Arab traders used whale’s bile to make them horny; that the Filipinos used curled-up duck embryos for the same reason; and that Livia, the wife of Augustus Caesar, found that lacing her guests’ food with desiccated Spanish flies contributed to their arousal. All this information, he tells me, is in his book. But, he adds, notwithstanding the iguana, the recipes themselves are far more palatable.

I have decided that Hill will be a trustworthy aphrodisiac cooking instructor. He learnt how to cook at the prestigious Leiths School of Food and Wine, then went on to become a culinary entrepreneur, travelling all over the world. He runs a spice company called Little Devils, has a foodie hotel in India and is about to open a restaurant in Oxford. He moonlights as a gastronomic consultant, and says he designed “40 per cent of Giraffe’s menu” (that’s Giraffe the restaurant chain).

He is also a published psychologist, and for years has been fascinated by the aphrodisiac qualities of food. “I have dined and dallied to my heart’s content, sowing wild oats with enthusiastic abandon,” he writes in the introduction. “Suffice to say, my efforts have never been met with anything short of ecstatic approval.”

In the flesh, however, all this seems unlikely. Tall and avuncular, with a beard and gleaming pate, Hill is ponderous around the kitchen and hardly your obvious Lothario. “It’s a question of persona,” he says when I confess these thoughts. “Honestly. I have a list of conquests as long as my arm. I am a superman lover.” Continue reading on The Times website (subject to Paywall restrictions)

Headlines have been dominated this week by damning revelations surrounding the Defence Secretary, Liam Fox, who is rumoured to have had a number of compromising relationships with various young men. This morning, fresh allegations emerged that Dr Fox is “actually a literal fox.”

“I was as shocked as anyone else,” says Jake Wallis Simons (32), the novelist and journalist who uncovered the damaging information. “But the more I think about it, the more it makes sense. Foxes are known for their stealth and cunning. It’s not a coincidence that this creature managed to become a senior figure in British politics.”

The revelations are supported by transcripts of a 2003 interview in which Liam Fox confessed to “a visceral dislike of farmers,” and an “overwhelming passion for chickens.” He also confessed to having “intimate knowledge of my constituents’ bins.” These comments were initially dismissed by analysts as being frivolous, but they are now being taken more seriously.

In another startling development, the Guardian today leaked details of some unreleased video footage showing Dr Fox at a late-night bar with an unidentified young man. A large fox’s tail – known to specialists as a “brush” – can clearly be seen protruding from under his raincoat.

“We are currently subjecting the footage to a series of rigorous tests to establish its authenticity,” a source from the newspaper said. “Once these tests have been completed to our satisfaction, we will release the Fox Tapes on our website.”

When questioned about his sources, Simons was candid. “I heard on the local grapevine that a member of the Scottish animal community had infiltrated British politics at the highest level,” he explained. “The foxes, of course, closed ranks. So I began by questioning my sources in the hedgehog population, but they were reluctant to give anything away. The same went for the squirrels and badgers. Finally, however, I was approached by a group of weasels who alleged that the Defence Secretary is, in actual fact, a literal fox. As I said, I was as shocked as anyone.”

Late last night, the Defence Secretary’s office released the following statement: “Liam Fox is recuperating after some nocturnal scavenging last night. We can nonetheless state categorically that at no time was he dependent on any Canidaelean behaviour, from the time he took office until the present.”

Dr Fox is due to make a statement to the Commons later today.

“It will simply be a normal day like any other,” said Jake Wallis Simons (32), speaking to reporters at his home yesterday. “I’ll wake up in the morning, have a shave, turn to my lucky writing aftershave and – poof – it will be empty. Just like that. This is a real danger, and I’m trying to raise awareness.”

Simons has been using “Scent of Chokolat” aftershave since July this year. He bought it while on a trip to Portugal, and has not looked back since. “It has a rather unusual scent,” Simons explained. “It’s sort of a bit chocolately, but then also smells a bit of handsoap or something. It’s totally, unique, very cheap, and very lucky. When I wear it, my writing flows like the brown river in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.”

The problem is, Scent of Chokolat is very rare. It is only available in Tomar, a small town in the centre of Portugal, and supplies are very limited. According to a Chokolat spokesman, the aftershave takes an unusually long time to produce.

“The frightening thing is,” said Simons, “the more I use it, the less there will be. I call that the Aftershave Change Theory.”

Although Aftershave Change – the notion that aftershave simply “runs out” when used – is supported by the majority of scientists, it is by no means accepted across the board. While some experts refer to AC as a “proven set of facts,” opinions differ vehemently. Many factions still strongly feel that the decline in the level of aftershave in the bottle is the result of a natural aftershavic adjustment. “We have seen aftershavic decline several times over the course of Simons’ lifetime,” explained Professor Steve Stevenson, an Aftershave Change sceptic. “There is every reason to believe that the current lows represent simply a fluctuation in an otherwise stable situation. The scaremongers should be ashamed of themselves. There should be no cause for aftershavic alarm.”

The problem for Simons is that since ”Scent of Chokolat” is his lucky aftershave, he cannot afford to take the gamble. ”If the bottle did run dry,” he said, “everything would fall apart. I’d be afflicted with writer’s block forever, and life would not be worth living. We need to get the message out there. It’s vital that we all take steps to combat Aftershave Change now – before it’s too late.”

News emerged today that Jake Wallis Simons (32), a novelist and journalist, has been approached by the Russian secret service, the Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации (or FSB for short).

“Although it was top secret, they had discovered that I’d recently applied to join MI6, and been rejected,” said Simons. “They suggested that I join the Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации as a mole, under the codename Sloppy Seconds.”

Although he did not say so directly, Simons intimated that the approach by the Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации mirrors their attempt at recruiting a young David Cameron in 1985. “Cameron was approached by a sexy couple on a beach,” said Simons, “but he was able to resist their allures. Personally, I was approached by a chap calling himself Steve, who was wearing a trenchcoat and smoking a cigarillo. It amounts to the same thing. David and I are men of a similar calibre.”

Speculation surrounds the question of whether or not Simons accepted the Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации’s offer. “To be honest, I’m not allowed to say either way,” he said. “My controllers have forbidden it. MI5 have ears everywhere.”

He confirmed rumours that he had started to study Russian, but said that this was “just a hobby.”

“Don’t forget, President Dmitri Medvedev said that Cameron would have made a very good agent,” Simons stressed. “I’d like to think he would say the same of me.”

A Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации spokesperson, however, denied that they had any interest in the writer. “We have never heard of him,” he said, fondling a vial of polonium-210 in his trouser pocket. “What could we do with a novelist anyway? We don’t recruit writers. It just doesn’t make sense.”

All Федеральная служба безопасности Российской Федерации agents are young and good looking, anyway, he added.