Dear Readers,
Good evening and welcome to the latest iteration of our newsletter-slash-propaganda arm. As long-haul fans will know, TF doesn’t really ‘do’ salacious headlines, but we have just moved into an office in the beating, bloody heart of the capital, just round the corner from the Windmill Theatre, and we couldn’t resist announcing that up top: it’s been sheer tedium kneading this thing together remotely, and it’s an unblended thrill to know that part of the ‘journey’ is now a finished chapter.
But let us add a crucial addendum: we are not – not quite yet – the beneficiaries of some lavish harvest of Californian seed capital. The office has been given to us at a peppercorn rate, to encourage young creatives (that’s us!) to feel they still have a stake in the West End. What this all goes to say is that we are still reliant on subscriptions to the print magazine as the chief source of revenue, and you can support us through the webstore here at the very agreeable price of £25 only per year.
As you may have clocked, there is a reduced workforce at the moment, and we are currently interviewing for a Ronnie Wood-type figure to join the band – to strum the old hands around – and to rework those first thrusting classics for a fresh audience. At present, there’s only one of us on stage full-time, so we’ve been strung out refining the next print magazine, which is shaping up to be a Bold Step Forward, with two deeply reported slices of reportage that we hope will make for a serious impact both in London and beyond. There’s still a laser-like focus on manufacturing everyday lols for general release, and to make space for first-time writers to claim their first byline, but please be assured that we’re making good on our promise to make The Fence the most exciting new magazine in Britain.
To the matters at hand: we’ve got some fantastic stuff about fashion, but first a little something on some other rip-off merchants.
Vino, Veritas
We would love to read an exposé on the racket that is the wine trade. We don’t mean the red-faced claret-hawkers of Mayfair and St James’s; though they have, of course, been at it for years. Rather we mean those new wine shops and bars, deliberately set up to flog vinegar to nervous millennials under the auspices of it being natural or affordable. If you’re fed up of being bamboozled by handwritten wine lists or extravagantly daubed chalkboards, then watch this space...
Paging Tutankhamun
In November 1922, the 5th Earl of Carnavon and Howard Carter stood outside a sealed door in the Valley of the Kings, in Luxor, Egypt, ready to show the waiting world a glint of purest gold.
Almost a century later, you can peep through this portal – by which we mean the official Highclere Castle Instagram page – and drink in George Herbert’s great-great-granddaughter-in-law breathlessly mangling couplets while displaying the vast extent of her marble staircase. The Countess of Carnavon’s home was, of course, the film set for a little-known indie TV series called Downton Abbey; but the nose for business doesn’t stop there. When not loudly aspirating on an Instagram story, she can be found acting as godmother (no, us neither) to cruise ships, in return for which her books are sold on board and we salute her business sense in registering a gin company with her stately home as a brand name. We can only hope that she is allowed to continue operating – both for her own sake and for ours – the social media accounts for her burgeoning business empire.
Daddy Fencebucks
In the past, we have made light of how many subscribers we have, throwing around figures in the hundreds of thousands – which was partly a joke – but largely a coy deflection at how challenging it is to imagine, support and advance a multi-platform operation in the digital age when you’re going against the legacy publications that you all know and love.
Over the next few months, we are going to be honest – perhaps too honest – about what is required money-wise to keep pushing this silly little project to its full and magnificent glory. As was briefly discussed at the start, there’s a big push towards reportage, which costs a lot to source, commission, write, edit and legal for public release. As we go forward, there is going to be a reader-revenue model put in place, so that writers and illustrators can continue to be paid fairly and promptly for their work. Alongside that, there will be some other exciting side-projects: events, merchandise and so on. We’ve thought broader and bolder than making a buck from tote bags, and we’re excited to tell you more, and tell you soon.
But permit us to be boring: there is a lofty, necessary goal of hitting print 1,000 subscribers by the end of the year. Currently, 633 individuals have the vicarious thrill of receiving an issue every quarter. But we need more of you to sign up to push us into the black.
Essentially, we would like to keep the newsletter and the website available for free, and for the cost of a print magazine to remain grounded at the everyday price of £6, as The Fence should be something that everyone can enjoy. And there’s nothing we relish more than seeing that cute push-notification drop when a new subscriber comes through to the inbox. Give us that greedy little pleasure right now and we’re yours for the rest of the year: subscribe today.
A Trip To The LFC Darkweb
A spectre is haunting football. Namely, the angry cohort of fans who take pleasure not from success, trophies or titles, but griping incessantly about their team's performance in the transfer market, at the expense of all else. So says Dean Van Nguyen, who's written a must-read probe into the strange cult of football fans who appear to take no joy from football.
His stated example is for his own club, Liverpool, but judging by the reaction to the piece from fans everywhere, it seems to be a grim – and grimly ubiquitous – subset of all fandoms; those who appear pathologically incapable of enjoying football as a game, other than as a capitalistic scramble for shiny new transfer prospects.
It's a salient examination on the modes and mores of 21st century football culture, which paints a fairly depressing picture of the extremely online fan. But, when asked why he thinks his piece has hit such a chord, Dean says he doesn't think the situation is as hopeless as all that.
‘When I saw the crowd at Anfield for the first pre-season friendly,’ he told us, ‘it reminded me that this strand of internet fan has very little to do with actual football. They're really just playing their own tangental internet game. I wasn't quite sure why, but I knew it had something to do with capitalism. The reaction to the piece has been mad. So many football journalists have been all over it. I'd say they're worn out from their mentions over the years. And there's been hundreds of comments from fans of Liverpool and other clubs, saying they felt the same. It was worth writing just to help some people realise that, while this certain strand of internet fan is loud, they're in a tiny minority.’
Mossy Posse
London fashion week has kicked off after a pandemic-related absence, which is very good news all round for those of you who like Diet Coke, Phillip Green, and walking in and out of 180, The Strand, WC2R 1EA.
In the summer, we commissioned Jade Angeles Fitton to recount the few years she spent working there, and now her caustically funny feature is online for you all to read for free. It’s laden with choice anecdotes on bad A-list behaviour, and captures the strange quiddity of an industry that so few people can write about with any sort of precision, and the rank sense of desperation that pervades celeb-adjacent social events.
Cancel Couture
The politically insurgent energy at Teen Vogue has long been the subject of mediaworld intrigue. Why is a Condé Nast title (global content officer: A. Wintour) publishing cut-out and keep guides on Karl Marx? Clio Chang answers literally every single question you might have about how the publication has operated in the last few years in this deep-dive here.
Diet Prada have won powerful enemies with their crusading Instagram account, including Dolce & Gabbana, who have served the microbloggers with a $700 million lawsuit. Maureen O’Connor gets into the ethics of it all in this very long but very good profile.
Though the subjects of both investigations are small fry sizzling in a big pan in the grand scheme of things. How come the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, NYT et al never go after a company or an individual with a chunkier public profile? Answers on a postcard.
In Case You Missed It
Fans of The Fence's Full Full Disclosure Disclosure will enjoy the teeny little *This article has been updated tag that's been added to New Republic editor Win McCormack's endorsement of NYT writer Nick Kristof's gubernatorial campaign: a campaign McCormack's wife will be overseeing.
David Ruciman on Peter Thiel.
You're Wrong About finally tackles one of its most requested topics: on the McDonalds coffee case, the myth of frivolous lawsuits and the weaponisation of late night monologues.
This outlet has been getting a lot of play in this newsletter of late but, gosh darn it, Samanth Subramanian is right: supply chains are fascinating.
Speaking of supply chains, a TikTok user has discovered the real downside of the Taliban's resurgence.
And Finally
Craig Brown has produced one of his finest parodies of late, which you can read in the most recent issue of Private Eye, where he nails the peculiar patter of Miriam Margolyes, an 80-year-old actress who loves swearing, and also spreading gossip on chat shows. It’s a well-chosen satire, as Margolyes has been jumping on the bones of Jacqueline du Pré to promote her memoir, and there is a general feeling that saying ‘fuck’ on daytime television does not quite make for as outré a performance as she thinks it does.
However, in all of this, there is a risk that we could lose what the actress – perhaps best known for playing Pomona Sprout in the Harry Potter series – has given to culture at large. Some of you might be familiar with her gig, where she incants her RP-drenched anecdotes next to avuncular Hollywood celebrities, which is very, very, very funny: at least the first time you see it.
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We’re not going to make a habit of sending this newsletter on Mondays, but we hope this has given you a pep to the start of the week, and please do reply to this email if you would like to chat to a member of the editorial team. And we’ll join you soon again, perhaps too soon, with some more mid-to deep dives, featurettes, gossip, tips and links.
All the best,
TF
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