Issue 50; The Editorial, 1st December, 2025

What a milestone—fifty issues! The big 5-Oh. And 10 Years old. Honestly, how did we get here? What started as a couple of scrappy articles and some rough writing back in Issue 1, has grown into what you now know as The Fake Intellectual. From those humble beginnings, we’ve somehow ended up with hundreds of readers and a loyal following. It’s been a journey, and I couldn’t be more grateful. As always, if you’d like to help spread the word, we’d truly appreciate the support.

Now, you might think we’d throw a huge party for our fiftieth issue, champagne, celebrity contributors, the works. But in true Fake Intellectual fashion, we just carried on doing what we do best. We even had to send Leo back to Esquire—no need for glossy photoshoots here. Maybe when we hit Issue 100 we’ll throw that big shindig. Until then, here’s Issue 50, delivered to you just as we always have.

In this issue, Piers casts his eye across UK society, exploring the rise of right-wing voices “politics without the politics,” as he puts it. I share my new obsession with Padel (yes, the sport), wax lyrical about the joy of lunch, and reflect on the books I’ve been devouring over early mornings and toast. For our email subscribers, there’s also a short essay on film and television, Anything Good On?, which looks at the current state of entertainment. And if you’re not already signed up, there’s no better time, all new subscribers this December will get the extra content straight to their inbox with a re-issue of the email.

So sit back, relax, and enjoy this milestone issue. And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, just drop us an email anytime mail@fakeintellectual.uk.

With gratitude,
Thomas W. Coombs
Editor-in-Chief

Issue 50; Just Hit It

Words by Thomas W Coombs

The first thing you need to know about Padel is… how on earth do you say it? “Pad-del”? “Pad-dal”? “Pad-ell”? “Pa-dél”? I still have no idea. What I do know is that it’s spelled Padel here in England, where the racket sport is spreading like a Californian wildfire, and yes, this writer has officially joined the "hype".

Issue 50; Maybe It’s Not the End

words by Piers Little

Is this what the street preachers meant by “the end is nigh”, but digitised, flattened into tweets, panic headlines, and people screaming into the void of the internet? Sometimes it feels like the whole world is turning in on itself. No one seems to like anyone anymore, and individual ego seems to have taken top billing over basic humanity.

Issue 50; The Morning Read Book Review

In this section, I share my thoughts on the books I’ve been reading over coffee and breakfast.  For this issue, I brushed up on my wine adventure, with Who’s Afraid of Romanée-Conti? by Dan Keeling and hit up my History prowess with Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari.

Issue 50; A Simple Lunch

words by Thomas W Coombs

Am I the only one who’s had enough of brunch?

That smug, overexposed, avocado-strewn “non-meal” that has, for over a decade now, inserted itself into our weekends and, somehow, the rest of the week too. Since the dawn of social media, brunch has been less about eating and more about performance, a meal you could only participate in if you snapped your smashed avocado on sourdough and uploaded it with a hashtag like #blessed or #brunchvibes.

Issue 49; Editorial, 26th July, 2025

As we enjoy a welcome break with some beautiful cooler air after weeks of sweating, with linen shirts clinging to our backs like an over friendly shower curtain, we are back with a new issue of The Fake Intellectual.

The first half of 2025 has been an odd one for all, from politics across the world going into a downward spiral, wars continuing and getting worse elsewhere and heatwaves setting fire to much of Europe, end of world anyone?  Obviously you would expect a website such as this may mention some of the horrid things happening in the world.  However, there are better people out there doing this and I feel many are not qualified to make a statement and should just keep opinions to themselves.  With this in mind we are doing what we always do and write about things that matter on an individual level.  

Take this month as an example of the FI, as I write about eating great food at a Michelin starred restaurant, my tired eyes giving up on me and for the first time, I review the books I have been reading as part of my ‘Current Morning Read’ series.  And finally we got the most English person in England, with a name that screams upper class to write about not travelling like an Englishman when going on holiday, we welcome Piers Little.  Piers contacted me out of the blue wanting to write for the FI after stumbling onto the website when searching for something else, probably more high brow.  The non Instagram, social media plum mouthed apologetic Mr Little is a man who speaks his mind, but very politely, so I’m sure he will be back with some delights and commentary on our lives and the world as he sees it.

If you subscribe to the newsletter you will also be looking at the lovely little article about my general hatred of technology and how I am going backwards, it could be age, but it is also the way it is all going.  Grab a coffee, sit back and have a read and enjoy.

Send us an email if you wish to contribute or make a comment, come one, come all.

TWC

Issue 49; I'll Go With Eight

Words by T W Coombs

I am not a gluttonous man, I just like good wine and food and when I can, I do like to indulge, to a respectable level, and dive head first into a quality wine list and menu.

It is not often that you get to experience a true delight, you sometimes need to pick the occasion or it is just because you want a special time without a true reason.  When such an occasion rode in on a full white stallion, we grabbed the reins and went to the Hide and Fox in Hythe, Kent.

Issue 49; Travel More, Less Like An Englishman

Words by Piers Little

Will you just all calm down, it is a holiday, a time to relax, to take a deep breath, to leave the kids in some group with total strangers at a nondescript resort.  All so you can eat a three course breakfast daily and start drinking cocktails the second your bum hits the sunlounger at 10am.  With this in mind, why do people travel like they just escaped a maximum security prison?

Issue 49; The Morning Read Book Review

Words by T W Coombs

In this section I give my thoughts on the books I have been reading over coffee and breakfast in the morning.  This month three books were consumed, “When the Going was Good” by Graydon Carter and two Self Help style books by Mark Manson, “Art of Not Giving a F*ck” and “A Book About Hope”.

Issue 49; The Age of The Reading Glass

Words by T W Coombs

I feel youthful, most of the time, the occasional ache brought on by being in one position for too long, or from an over indulgent gym session.  I rarely feel old.  Not that in the scheme of things I am an old man, I am within my fortieth decade of life on this plain of existence.  However there are signs of a body breaking down.  And it starts with a hobby.

Issue 48; Editorial, 30th December, 2024 - The Winter Edition

Winter is here, the air is cold, we spend more time looking at the thermostat and loading logs on the fire than any other time. And we are so hungover from the dark days of the year that only more red wine will help.  However, to lighten the mood and to give you some time to think about something else, I give you Issue 48 of, the newly titled, The Fake Intellectual.

It has been a crazy year so this is really a close out of 2024 and a complete off load from me to you, aren’t you all so lucky.  With weddings a plenty, some time to spare, along with too much time on my hands, not without adding time to my day, it seems this is what big publications may call the Time issue.  But as I am my own man of the year, every year, and the name is taken The Fake Intellectual or The FI for short is what you get.

As always, please give feedback by email if you are so inclined, check out the other articles I have read and sign up to the newsletter so you do not miss an issue.

TWC

Issue 48; The First Slow Luxury

Take a minute. Take another, take a few more minutes away from that side hustle, your day job, your life.  Just stop.  Take a seat and watch the world just happen around you.  With a coffee, a book or just watch people running around within their busy lives.  The most precious thing we own is our time and the ultimate slow luxury is to take some of it and do absolutely nothing with it.

Issue 48; The Year of Weddings

I had taken a deep breath and slowly let it out, all my friends who were going to be, were married, I was married, I was done with weddings.  Then something happened I was not expecting, there were some people hiding in the cracks, real couples I had not thought of, whom I thought would never or wouldn’t.  So here I was in 2024 with four weddings to attend, so obviously I went and bought a new suit.

Issue 48; The Day In the Life Of

It is a strange feeling suddenly having nothing to do.  Going from being busy every day with work then all other tasks with the family at the weekends, no matter how small my family is, the dog takes up time.  I have always been busy and then I wasn’t, when out of the blue (even though it was seen coming, you believe it was just you) the company I worked for went belly up and I was made redundant after a couple of weeks of twiddling my thumbs “working” for administrators. Then my calendar emptied for the week and coming weeks for the foreseeable future, instantly.  What the hell was I supposed to do?

Issue 48; The Accidental Morning Person

When did I become that guy? I have started to rise before the Sun has even hit the horizon, the moon and stars illuminating the path before me as I walk the dog.  I then set off to the gym, getting in a thirty minute work out of either weights or cardio before home, to shower, then relax with a book, breakfast and a coffee.  By the time I sit down at my desk, I have been up for what feels like hours.

Issue 47; Editorial, 5th April 2024

Welcome to the new issue of The Journal, only eighteen months since the last graced the internet and if you are a subscriber, your inbox.  Why has it been so long you cry, well, I just hadn’t had the time. That, of course, is the simple answer.  There is a long drawn out answer also, there have been words written for other publications along with the first draft of my book project being completed, so rewrite number one begins. Exciting but also a daunting task. It meant that my other articles have been a work in progress for sometime and not just because of my wine drinking and cigar smoking.

So what now? From six issues in 2021, to three issues in 2022, to nothing in 2023 to now this delight.  Through all the other projects which are on-going, The Journal will now be a Bi-Annual online publication, with some longer articles but remember if you subscribe to the mailing list you get an extra article on each issue plus a email only mini issue during the summer.

So what is in store for this first issue of 2024, well just scroll down, easy, from life with a dog, some Hollywood annoyance in the style world and a writing project I set myself in 2022, these are words on life and what comes with it in the realms of our shared interests.

I hope you enjoy the issue, and once you are done, head to the curated items from elsewhere on the web, situated at the bottom of the page so you can go and ponder the words of others or familiar faces.

TWC

Issue 47; Dog Day Afternoons

They say that a dog is man's best friend, the dog will wait for his master to return for the day to lavish him with fondness.  Now I may have missed something in the contract, but I feel it is more like the dog is waiting for the butler to return, the human servant who feeds said dog, picks up all the excrement when it is nice and fresh and rubs the belly of the upturned beast every time it looks a bit cute and demands it to happen.  I ask all, who really is the master here?

Issue 47; Styling the Hollywood Lies

Writing in the world of gentlemen's clothing and lifestyle always brings you into the same boring troupes.  Of course the Negroni, even though I am a drinker of this, it is not because of the Gram, it is because I have drunk it for years. Secondly, the love and admiration of the style of Steven McQueen, Daniel Craig (as Bond) and the film The Talented Mr Ripley (Messrs Damon and Law). But why are so many looking up to the lies of a made up world of movie stardom, do you actually like their style, if so, maybe you should follow the stylist.

Issue 47; Twelve Months of Letters

Like gin and a good steak, writing is a must in my life.  Whether I am scribbling some nonsensical idea for a novel or article in a notebook or really spilling my heart on why I love brogues, it has to be in my life in a form. I find my writing far out ways the way I talk, and not just my mixed London Kentish accent but sometimes I think back and wonder what on earth I was talking about. Constantly wishing I should have listened to many of my teachers and elders in my life that we should all think before we speak.  As I am now in my 40s this is unlikely to change. However the written word that sits before me, can be deleted and changed before read by the recipient.

Issue 47; Time for Hats

There are a rare few occasions when I will be seen wearing a hat out and about in town or country.  When I’m in more sunny climates on holiday then a straw style trilby dons by head, which was purchased in the Dominican Republic many years back when I realised I hadn’t brought a suitable hat, of any kind.  It has on occasions been brought out when at home, with the scorching summers we have been having recently.  There is no better attire to sip a chilled Gavi watching the world go by.