Ralf Webb

Splendide Mendax

A short story concerning Fed, born Frederick, a young man who considers Julian Assange to the messiah.
Gary Grimes

Day 1,509 in the Big Brother House

Our writer, a lonely tweenager in rural Ireland, took to his computer and found new galaxies of possibilities – on a Big Brother forum.
Miles Ellingham & Cormac Kehoe

Speaking in Small Tongues

An oil trader and an Old Etonian with a genius for PR, was Justin Welby the worst Archbishop of Canterbury since Thomas Arundel?

Issue 22 available now

Go To Shop

The Fence

The Grantham Anthem

Kieran Morris and Fergus Butler-Gallie are both obsessed with the Iron Lady, so they took the train to Lincolnshire for a Thatcher-fuelled day out.

WINTER SALE

Buy a Print & Digital subscription before the end of February and you’ll receive a tote bag full of back issues.
Get your issues 18, 19, 21 & 22 and free bag at the link below.

Get this ridiculous deal
Features

Features VIEW ALL →

Miles Ellingham & Cormac Kehoe

Speaking in Small Tongues

An oil trader and an Old Etonian with a genius for PR, was Justin Welby the worst Archbishop of Canterbury since Thomas Arundel?
Natalie Berry

In the Shadow of the Mountain

One British family produced two legendary climbers who summitted mountains in the Alps and the Himalayas. This is their story.
The Fence

The Grantham Anthem

Kieran Morris and Fergus Butler-Gallie are both obsessed with the Iron Lady, so they took the train to Lincolnshire for a Thatcher-fuelled day out.
Francesca Bratton

This Turbulent Priest

Cake and coffee with Pat Buckley, a whistleblower; ex-priest; newspaper columnist; gay rights activist; HIV activist; husband; and the scourge, in his own words, ‘of everyone’.

SUBSCRIBE TO
THE FENCE MAGAZINE

64 pages of pure menace.
Four times a year. 29.99 pounds sterling.

View Subscription Plans
Facts

Facts VIEW ALL →

Drew Lustman

The Kids Are Coming up from Behind

The life of an international DJ consists of ceaseless transit and wild-eyed revelry. So how do you keep the beats pumping when parenthood comes calling?
Clive Martin

Down at Daymer Bay

Siloed away at the far corner of England, Cornwall is one of the few locales that makes this small country feel rather vast, a county of sinister lore and berserk history.
Olympia Campbell

An Ugly Business

A top model describes the scrutiny you face from booking agents, designers and your peers when you try and land a fashion campaign. Sorry, babe, it happens to the best of us.
Miranda Sawyer

Loving the Nineties

Who were the gatekeepers who made the country swing again? Travel back to 1992, and meet the DJs, producers and journalists who made Britpop a global juggernaut.

Issues SHOP →

  • 22
  • 21
  • 20
  • 19
  • 18
  • 17
  • 16
  • 15
  • 14
  • 13
Last Days of Soho by Francisco Garcia
Loving the Nineties by Miranda Sawyer
An Ugly Business by Olympia Campbell
Down at Daymer Bay by Clive Martin
The Kids Are Coming up from Behind by Drew Lustman
The Grantham Anthem by The Fence
In the Shadow of the Mountain by Natalie Berry
Day 1,509 in the Big Brother House by Gary Grimes
Off the Box by Stephen Smith
Splendide Mendax by Ralf Webb
The More They Feel, the More They Buy by Clive Martin
Over the Hill and Far Away by Lauren Bensted
A Load of Bollocks by Bron Maher
Down on the Farm by Claudia Cockerell
Icarus Also Flew by Ella Fox-Martens
The Buddha of Siberia by Miles Ellingham & Cormac Kehoe
A Memorable Meal by John Banville
A Hackney Story by Max Daly
A Long Stretch by Anonymous
Snooker Loopy by The Fence
Something in the Water by Fiona Mozley
If You Can’t Beauchamp, Join Them by Margaret Mitchell
A Pint of Plane by Jimmy McIntosh
A Haunting in Shoreditch by Jordan Michelman
Bib Brother by Joe Bishop
End of a Sentence by Anonymous
The Princess and the Pitta by Róisín Lanigan
The White Whale by Orlando Whitfield
West End Confidential by Clive Martin
Among the Russians by Camilla Bell-Davies
Sling Voters by Bron Maher
Two Eds are Better than One by Ed Cumming
Bread and Circuses by The Fence
Something to Tell You by Sachin Kureishi
The Drugs Don’t Work by Margaret McCartney
A Cozzer Snout by Francisco Garcia
Absolutely Buzzing by Thomas Gorton
The Kid Stays out of the Picture by Anonymous
Burning with Pleasure by Sophie Elmhirst
Giving it the Big One by Clive Martin
Failure to Turn by Geoff Dyer
Kaiser Wilhelm’s Folly by Eve Webster
When One Grows Tired of Cyberdog by Clive Martin
Lunch for The Fence by Ed Cumming
You’re the One, Ellie Roebuck by Rosie Hewitson
Ghost ‘n’ the Machine by Fiona Mozley
Catman Scoop by Robbie Armstrong
Dog Day Afternoon by Hussein Kesvani
Looking for Bagley’s by Jimmy McIntosh
The WeHo Siege by Harvey James
The Show Must Go On by Isobel Thompson
Twenty out of Twenty by Joe Bishop
The Fuck Tree by Bron Maher
Against Nature by Joe Zadeh
Twenty out of Twenty by Joe Bishop
Bruce & Jeffrey by Jane Rankin-Reid
Oliver Reed’s Big Night Out by Jimmy McIntosh
At Auntie’s Knee by Emma Magnus
Salt Over Your Shoulder by Sarah Haque
The Enfield Blazers by Jade Angeles Fitton
Cruising in the Trenches by Anonymous
Taboo or not Taboo by Josh Mcloughlin
Zebra, Crossing by Sophie Elmhirst
Riders on the Storm by Killian Faith-Kelly
Paying in Sweat by Ophira Gottlieb
Aisle B, Back by Davey Brett
Posillipo Nights by Francisco Garcia
Laugh Like you Used to by Clive Martin
What Became of the Cat Meat Man? by Sally Howard
At His Majesty’s Pleasure by Jimmy McIntosh
Helter Skelter in Honiton by Josh Barrie
Taxi Cab Confessionals by Mark Blacklock
An American Tail by Michelle Taylor
The Julian Fellowes Benevolent Fund by Caspar Salmon
Just the Tonic by Robbie Armstrong
Las Babas del Diablo by Róisín Lanigan
You’re Tearing Me Apart, Lisa by Madeline Grant
Something Is Rotten on the Street of Denmark by Jimmy McIntosh
A Postcard from Vesuvius by Danielle Thom
Fashion Beasts! by Clive Martin
Shiny Happy People by Róisín Lanigan
Lifestyles of the Professionally Jaded by Kieran Morris
Where the River Joins the Water by Jimmy McIntosh
Restart My Fire by Jack Beaumont
Columba Palumbus, Living Amongst Us by Grace Linden
Standing on the Pipes by William Vandyck
Shreds of Approval by Misti Traya
In Defence of Mean Girls by Sarah Haque
Mr Blobby Has a Cold by Tom Nicholson
A Freak Is a Long Time in Politics by The Fence
Blair’s Blokes by The Fence
The Rhyme of the Ancient Marketer by Hugh Morris
Goblin Mode by Fergus Butler-Gallie
Around About the Trent by Josh Mcloughlin
Welcome to the Pleasuredome by Róisín Lanigan
Think You’re Hard Enough? by Kieran Morris
Destitution Row by The Fence
With a Thud by Séamas O’Reilly
Do I Dare to Eat a Peach? by Michelle Taylor
Strangers in the Night by Jimmy McIntosh
Fiction

Fiction VIEW ALL →

Ralf Webb

Splendide Mendax

A short story concerning Fed, born Frederick, a young man who considers Julian Assange to the messiah.
Lucas Oakeley

Empty Orchestra

A short story in a pub.
Tim MacGabhann

Cleaner

A short story from cartel country by Tim MacGabhann.
Eva Wiseman

The Knife

A thumb-biter of a tale.
  • Opinion
  • Food
  • Investigations
  • Culture
Geoff Dyer

Failure to Turn

The majordomo of literary non-fiction meditates upon his mortality, his ear hair, and his complicated feelings toward the oeuvre of Luca Guadagnino.
Nesrine Malik

Elder States, Man

To spend your life online is to live at one remove from reality – stand back too far, and you might find the years speeding by before your eyes.
Róisín Lanigan

The Chic Young Divorcée

Making a swift 180 down the aisle.
Harriet Rix

Lost in the Woods

Guy Shrubsole’s schemes have the potential to unleash havoc in the British countryside.
Richard Woodall

The View from Mount Olympus

2012’s Summer Olympics were a harbinger of the dreadful decade to come.
Fergus Butler-Gallie

At the Altar of Capital

How the Conservative Party lost their religion to the pull of the market.
Richard Smyth

The State of Nature

A classic treatise against men writing about the natural world.
Séamas O’Reilly

FBPE Fantasia

Unpicking the last four years of Remaniac delusions.
Joe Kennedy

Herdmindedness

Do good novelists have to write good novels?
John Banville

A Memorable Meal

Novelist John Banville once went for lunch in an Umbrian tavern. He's remembered it for the past fifty years. He recounts it for us now.
Joe Bishop

Bib Brother

The Michelin Guide is arcane, self-serious and totally nonsensical. Even the chefs themselves can't workout the star system. And yet, we can't bear to break away from it.
Róisín Lanigan

The Princess and the Pitta

Truly the people’s café.
Margaret Mitchell

If You Can’t Beauchamp, Join Them

Learning the secret of eternal life from a Kensington pizzeria owner, Ciro Orsini, who at the age of 75, still dresses like a biker – and who still has an eye for the ladies.
Ian Trueger

The Feast of Saint John

A particular central London restaurant has enjoyed an offally good time over the past few years, wouldn't you agree?
Charlotte Ivers

Baker’s Dozen

Tom Baker was a hard-drinking, fine-dining legend whose Soho sprees were captured in an infamous 1978 newspaper profile. 45 years later, a younger writer retraces his steps in a new, more sanitised era.
Ed Cumming

Two Eds are Better than One

Ed Cumming has a funny name. He's not the only one. So he took his name twin out for lunch to commiserate this reality.
Ed Cumming

Lunch for The Fence

How often do you have to file in order to be called a regular columnist? As this story proved, the answer is 'two years', as our free lunch editor returns for his second bite at the cadging cherry.
Jimmy McIntosh

Oliver Reed’s Big Night Out

Our pints correspondent drinks in the shadow of a giant.
Miles Ellingham & Cormac Kehoe

Speaking in Small Tongues

An oil trader and an Old Etonian with a genius for PR, was Justin Welby the worst Archbishop of Canterbury since Thomas Arundel?
Max Daly

A Hackney Story

In the early 2000s, Clapton was the scene of a spate of public shootings, often conducted in broad daylight. The area earned the tabloid sobriquet ‘Murder Mile’. But who was behind the violence?
Emma Magnus

At Auntie’s Knee

Do you pay your TV license? Course you don't. Nobody does. Particularly not the license pay vigilantes fighting the good cause - we meet them.
Camilla Bell-Davies

Among the Russians

Around 30,0000 Russians fled to Serbia at the beginning of the Ukraine war. At a foggy banya in the middle of Belgrade, some of them tell us why.
Jordan Michelman

A Haunting in Shoreditch

The Ace of shades.
Clive Martin

West End Confidential

A tour of the filthy and glamorous capital.
Fiona Mozley

Something in the Water

Why do people drink their own piss?
Clive Martin

Giving it the Big One

In the heart of the east end of London, a memorial is held to Dave Courtney, the city's celebrity gangster. Clive Martin raises a glass to a legend.
Tim Wyatt

In the Shadow of St Paul’s

One of the most extraordinary investigations we've ever published, uncovering a torrid legacy of deceit, fraud and suicide at the heart of the Church of England.
Miranda Sawyer

Loving the Nineties

Who were the gatekeepers who made the country swing again? Travel back to 1992, and meet the DJs, producers and journalists who made Britpop a global juggernaut.
Clive Martin

The More They Feel, the More They Buy

Mad//fest, or Madfest for short, is an advertising and marketing conference where speakers declaim that 'brands are dead' or 'brands are God.'
Orlando Whitfield

The White Whale

A failed art dealer recounts his dealings with one of the industry's trickiest and most enigmatic characters.
The Fence

Beach Bums

In France? Sure. In Italy? Why not. But in chilly Blighty? Surely nobody could stand it. Some can. We uncover the naked truth behind Britain’s nudist beaches and their stern, shrivelled patrons.
The Fence

Who Louis Should’ve Met

Rather than the worthy docs about mental health and alcoholism, here are the programmes that Monsieur Theroux should have seen through: the weekends away with the freaks, bad hats and oddballs that used…
John Phipps

Life of Reilly

In the heart of Drogheda lives an Irish man on a peculiar crusade. We meet Tom Reilly, a historian hellbent on clearing the name of Oliver Cromwell.
Olly Haynes

Houellebecq Honeypot

Jini van Rooijen is an OnlyFans model and a member of the experimental Dutch art collective KIRAC. She also honeypotted Michel Houellebecq, the world's horniest author.
The Fence

Bread and Circuses

There are a lot of industry parties in London. Not all of them are good. We ranked them in all the key metrics (professional advancement, fun, chat, narcotics, horniness).
The Fence

The Carbuncle Cup 2024

The Fence presents the Carbuncle Cup, crowning what we believe to be the very worst new building in Britain to be opened since 31 August 2018, the last time the award was handed out.
Etc.

Etc. VIEW ALL →

The Fence

Nobel Endeavours II

We return to ask some stupid questions of the smartest people on Earth and, once more, our Nobelists oblige.
The Fence

Beach Bums

In France? Sure. In Italy? Why not. But in chilly Blighty? Surely nobody could stand it. Some can. We uncover the naked truth behind Britain’s nudist beaches and their stern, shrivelled patrons.
The Fence

Nature’s Cruellest Mistake

Take even a cursory glance at the natural world and very soon you will find all sorts of creatures with ridiculously outsized capabilities to slay the planet’s one true custodian: us lot, humankind.
The Fence

Who Louis Should’ve Met

Rather than the worthy docs about mental health and alcoholism, here are the programmes that Monsieur Theroux should have seen through: the weekends away with the freaks, bad hats and oddballs that used…

A weekly mail-out of investigations, gossip and tips.

SIGN UP TO OUR TEDIOUSLY
POPULAR NEWSLETTER,
OFF THE FENCE.

Most Read this Month

Natalie Berry

In the Shadow of the Mountain

One British family produced two legendary climbers who summitted mountains in the Alps and the Himalayas. This is their story.
Miles Ellingham & Cormac Kehoe

Speaking in Small Tongues

An oil trader and an Old Etonian with a genius for PR, was Justin Welby the worst Archbishop of Canterbury since Thomas Arundel?
Henry Wismayer

Brick by Brick

A celebration of an establishment in deepest south London with a tricksy landlord and a never-changing clientele. An ode, then, to the beauty of the mediocre pub.
Gary Grimes

Day 1,509 in the Big Brother House

Our writer, a lonely tweenager in rural Ireland, took to his computer and found new galaxies of possibilities – on a Big Brother forum.
Stephen Smith

Off the Box

One of the last TV newsmen speaks of the halcyon days of long lunches and fat ratings, living life high on the hog.
Max Daly

A Hackney Story

In the early 2000s, Clapton was the scene of a spate of public shootings, often conducted in broad daylight. The area earned the tabloid sobriquet ‘Murder Mile’. But who was behind the violence?