James Spooner

Spooner as he appears on the cover of Book 4

Charlene Spooner

Belinda Blumenthal

Bella Ridley

Giselle Sylvester

Helga Yonker

Fanny Driller

Grand High Prince of Liechtenstein

**Special Agent James Spooner, Laird of Gretna Green**, was a primary character in Books 4 and 5 of *Belinda Blinked*. He was an MI6 agent hired by Steele's Pots and Pans to combat the threat posed by Bisch-Herstellung. Failing his initial task of uncovering the "Special One", Spooner's position shifted to that of company handler within Steele's, carrying out field work with the aid of the company sales director Belinda Blumenthal. He was a founding member of the Confidential Order of Cookware Knights. At the end of Book 5, he is murdered by George Sylvester.

Spooner has the distinction of being the first openly bisexual male character in *Belinda Blinked.*

## Appearance

As is often the case with his characters, Rocky devotes very little detail to Spooner's physical appearance. In their first meeting, Belinda notes that he has "decent, well-polished shoes, goodish physique, a full head of dark hair and to-die-for smile". He chooses to wear his stubble rather than shaving, and is described as having a "hairy bottom" during a tryst with Giselle.

He wears a standard-issue leather jacket, apparently given to all MI6 field agents and carries with him a litany of increasingly impractical gadgets including a laser watch and a utility belt containing binoculars and wet wipes disguised as an "ankle bracelet of charms".

## Personality

Spooner initially appears as a suave, mysterious secret agent. At times he has even shown himself to be stern and commanding. However as the series progressed, this cool exterior rapidly deteriorated into indecision, carelessness and foolhardiness. He is cautious to a fault (although he regularly takes answers at face value), leading him to some bizarre conclusions in his investigation. This, coupled with his near-constant second guessing, prevented him from drawing together any list of suspects whatsoever. His incompetence is so great that even within the skewed logic of the books, characters comment on his idiocy. Like many other characters, he is prone to violent emotional outbursts which have resulted in his capture and his eventual death.

## Background

Although Spooner's nationality is never directly mentioned, Jamie reads his lines in a thick Scottish accent, parodying of Sean Connery's tenure as James Bond. Whether this is merely Jamie's own interpretive license or something Rocky himself has considered is not known.

Throughout Book 4, Spooner's life and career are alluded to in a series of brief asides. At an undisclosed point in time, he attended an unnamed boarding school where he stayed in Devonshire Wing. It was here that he had a bathetic sexual encounter during lights out with Prefect Tommy Stoneshire, marking the series' first homosexual encounter between two men.

Before his time with Steele's, Spooner became notorious for his incompetence as a secret agent, with George Sylvester describing him as the "laughing stock of the spy game". While contemplating the identity of the Special One, Spooner's past failures are hinted at when he reflects on his "bitter" experiences investigating double agents in the past.

Rather than a license to kill, Spooner merely has a "license to hurt", calling into question his use of a firearm throughout Book 4. Despite this, it is later revealed that he has exceedingly high security clearance, reporting directly to the head of British Intelligence, the Duchess of Epsom (though this may be through his position within COCK).

It is revealed at James' funeral that he has multiple ex-wives, and also that he was the Laird of Gretna Green.

## Biography

### Season 4

James Spooner is first introduced as the MI6 contact of Jim Walters (head of Apollo Security Agencies). When Belinda tells Tony and Sir James Godwin about the information she received from Agent Helga Yonker about the Special One, Sir James rings Jim Walters for help. They organise a meeting between Belinda and James Spooner at the Pentra Long Bar.

Upon meeting, the two of them are quite taken with each other, and have sex in Belinda's room. Before going inside, Spooner shows off some of his spy equipment by stripping Belinda with some laser cufflinks.

The next day, Belinda takes Spooner to Steele's Pots and Pans to start his investigation into who the Special One might be. He uses a fake identity (IT contractor), with Belinda lending credence to his story, that gives him free rein to travel between head office in London and the factory up in Scotland. It also allows him to go through people's offices fairly inconspicuously.

Upon arrival, his first target is Bella Ridley. He questions her about her previous travels and her business duties (in a very ham-fisted way) while feeling her up, and decides, based on her answers, she is *probably* innocent. Next, he goes into Belinda's office, reasoning that just because she's brought him on doesn't mean that she can't be the mole. While in her office, he discovers that she's planned a visit with the Glee Team up to the Scotland factory, which she hasn't told him about. Immediately after making this discovery, he's caught in her office by Giselle.

He avoids suspicion by quickly concocting a story about checking Belinda's computer, and Giselle tells him she's actually there to drive him to the Pentra for drinks with the Glee Team. The two get into her car, and she decides to drive the long way around to the Pentra, so she can spend more time alone with Spooner. They stop off at Brent Reservoir, and go skinny-dipping. Just as they start bonking, an old fisherman yells at them for ruining his fishing, and gives chase. The two sexual miscreants run and hide in the chimney of the nearby Cricklewood pumping station.

They continue their session, and Spooner tries questioning her. After alluding to the orgasm she'd just had, she implies that she'd actually faked it. Spooner is momentarily shocked and down-hearted, and he thinks back to a certain incident in his youth with Prefect Tommy Stoneshire. However, his fears are allayed when she reveals that she did in fact orgasm. She then flips him over onto his stomack, and starts rimming him.

Nearly two weeks later, as Belinda lands in Scotland, Spooner watches her arrive, having arrived ahead of her to set up some surveillance. As Belinda gets in a taxi and is driven away, Spooner summons his colleague Mimi, and the two agents follow the taxi to an old church. They watch as she's let in by someone they can't see clearly. Out of their sight, Belinda meets an old crone and exchanges a coded greeting.

After waiting for a minute, Spooner follows her inside, with his gun at the ready. Unfortunately for him, Belinda and the crone have received a warning, and have already escaped out the back by the time James enters the church. He checks around, but doesn't find anything.

Some time later, he manages to track them down to Belinda's hotel room. He masquerades as her fiance, and asks the front desk to call her room to let him know he's there. She lets him up (for some reason). When he's let into her room, he doesn't seem surprised to see that the crone is actually Helga, and that she is pointing a gun at him.

(Worth noting here, James' plan when he came up to her room was to gamble on the possibility that she wasn't the Special One. The possible outcomes were: 1) she's the Special One, and she shoots him dead, and 2) she's not the Special one, and he can work with her. It seems odd that as a superspy, he couldn't wait to devise another plan that wasn't so risky.)

Belinda explains the situation to Helga and James, and they realise they're all on the same team. They engage in a vigorous threesome. After they're done, Belinda gets a call confirming the Glee Team visit at the factory the following day. She's scared by the possibility the Special One might be there, but James convinces her that she has to go.

The next day, after the Glee Team has finished their visit and started an orgy in the factory, James Spooner bounds in, still pretending to be an IT contractor. He joins the orgy, but after it's all over, he and Belinda realise that while everyone's been distracted, they've lost track of both Professor Slinz and the Tri-Oxy Brillo plans. They run into the laboratory storeroom, and at last find out the identity of the Special One: Giselle is on the floor, suffocating Slinz with her stockings. Spooner and Belinda try to stop her, but Giselle fires a gun at the cooking racks on the ceiling, sending a rain of kitchen appliances down on the two of them. While they're incapacitated, she escapes with the professor.

Spooner, Belinda, and the rest of the head office employees fly back to London. Spooner stays at the airport to enjoy a bit of duty-free shopping, and Belinda leads everyone else back to the office for the inaugural meeting of the Confidential Order of Cookware Knights. While James is away, the meeting finishes, and a bomb is detonated in the carpark as all the members leave.

### Season 5

James Spooner returns to the Steele's Pots and Pans offices as the dust is clearing after the explosion. He checks on all the victims, and realises that there is no sign of Bella. He scans the rubble with his wraparound shades/infrared goggles, and finds her unconscious body. He and Belinda start performing CPR on her.

The following week, while Belinda stays at his flat, he informs her of an upcoming mission to East Berlin to rescue Slinz and bring Bisch and Giselle to justice. He invites her to attend a special course to see if she's fit to be an MI6 agent. She agrees, and he takes her to RADS (Royal Academy of Drama and Stuff) for her espionage course with acting mistress Geremimah St Frostfirst. She passes this course with flying colours.

James and Belinda then go on their mission, with the secret identities of James Tea and Belinda "Smiffy" Smith. Posing as life insurance agents, they book a meeting with Herr Bisch at his head office. Unfortunately for them, as they arrive Bisch is being rushed off to his private hospital for a life-threatening asthma attack. Instead, they meet his Personal Assistant Petra. In her office, after signing all the forms, James sends Belinda to the copier room, leaving him and Petra alone. They have sex, and she's so pleased with his skills that she invites him and Belinda to dinner that night at Herr Bisch's *schloss*.

They accept the invitation for the golden opportunity that it is. Once they're there, Spooner goes to Belinda's room and warns them that the rooms are potentially bugged, and so they need to be careful of what they say. Later that evening, right before dinner, they're bonking on Belinda's windowsill, and James glimpses Giselle and George Sylvester in the courtyard below, loading Slinz's body into the boot of their car, only he doesn't realise who they are or what they're doing.

They then head down to dinner with Bisch and Petra, where the two spies finally meet Bisch for the first time face-to-face. However, only about two minutes into dinner, Bisch takes a good look at Belinda and recognises her. James tries to threaten to hurt Petra to hold Bisch off, but Bisch doesn't care about poor Petra, and sends his goons to take them down. Seeing no way out, James gives up, but is saved by Belinda, who whips the front of her dress away, revealing her juicy boobies. The goons are hypnotised by them, and one by one, they lower their faces into her cleavage and are knocked out by the special sleeping zest she'd put on them. She leads Spooner out of the *schloss* through a hidden passage behind a tapestry (that she somehow knew was there).

Once outside, Spooner takes over the spying. He calls Mimi to come pick them up in her Woodlouse car, and she drives them to a takeaway place called 'It Curry Be Wurst'. He leads Belinda through a hidden doorway behind the deep-fat fryer, and into an office at the end of a long corridor, where the Duchess is waiting.

The Duchess reveals to Belinda that she is in fact M, the overall head of all British intelligence. She tells Spooner and Belinda that Giselle and George have taken Slinz and left the continent to Australia. She says she plans to send the two of them after Giselle and George, then kicks Spooner out so she and Belinda can have sex on her desk.

While James, Belinda and Bella are at the airport, preparing to board their flight to Australia, Belinda happens to meet Contessa Lucia Lorenzo at the Platinum Hornbill Bar. So that no one knows where they are, James hits her with a stun gun, freezing her for 17 minutes and wiping her memory of them ever being there. He then heads to the toilet before the flights boards.

After this point, James disappears off the radar for a bit. We know he must be with Belinda and Bella, but he's not mentioned until three full chapters later, having sex with a blonde beach babe by the name of Fanny Driller. He'd forgotten his meetup with Belinda after having too many martinis the night before. While he was mucking around not doing his job, Belinda and Bella were captured by black-ops and taken to the clink. Thankfully, James manages to track them down, but in trying to rescue them, he falls for maybe the most obvious trick in the book and gets himself stuck in there with them.

For what seems to be the next few hours, but could be as short as a few minutes, Spooner, Belinda and Bella pass the time by bonking each other. Abruptly, Giselle comes down and rescues them, having been turned on by George and Bisch, who's just arrived. Giselle explains that she was only being evil to get the money to pay for treatment for her mother, who the very rare but fatal condition conchakkutritus-detritus. Before they can all escape together, Bisch and George find them leaving the clink, and start fighting them, with the help of their gang of goons. Spooner and George are fighting one-on-one, when George provokes Spooner into a reckless attack by insulting his secretary. When Spooner lunges at George, George pulls out a dagger and kills James.

### Season 6

James Spooner is given a state funeral for his sacrifice, and is laid to rest at Westminster Abbey. His funeral is attended by the tearful Queen Elizabeth II, and the procession of mourners following his coffin is in the order of who he had sex with most recently, as per his will. This means that Bella is leading the procession, but following her is several of his bitter ex-wives, the Russian Minister for Propaganda, a milkmaid, and the Grand High Prince of Liechtenstein. During the funeral ceremony he is also revealed to be the Laird of Gretna Green in Scotland.

## Appearances

* Season 4 episodes 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13
* Season 5 episodes 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13
* Season 6 episode 1 (*mentioned*)
* Christmas Porno 5

## Notes

* James became the first, and so far, only confirmed queer male character in the series in S4E8, with the reference to an old romp with Prefect Tommy Stoneshire in Devonshire wing. From the sounds of it, this encounter happened when James was a student at a private school. He has also apparently bonked the Grand High Prince of Liechtenstein.
* James is also the first, and so far, only main character in the series to have died. However, he is also the only character to have appeared in a chapter after his death.
* James' spy gadgets include: an anklet with charms that can fold out into a pair of miniature binoculars and a packet of wet wipes; some laser cufflinks that can burn clothes off; a dagger in his sock which doubles as a phone; some wrap-around shades that can flip into infra-red goggles; a 3 foot 4' stun gun that wipes someone's memory and freezes them for 17 minutes; a trusty knitting needle for lock-picking.
* James has a secretary by the name of Peggy Loveleaf.
* Since he was buried in Westminster Abbey, James Spooner is apparently on par with Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, and British monarchs dating back centuries.
* James wore Y-Fronts, not a black thong.