Dear Readers,
Welcome! We really do hope you’re enjoying the holidays, and that you haven’t been reduced to Ben Affleck-meme levels of ennui at extended interactions with your nearest and dearest.
It’s been a whole long fortnight since we joined you last, and so we thought we’d punch together an annual review of sorts, consisting of the most popular articles we’ve published this year, and also a brief chronicle of the best things that we’ve read over the last 12 months.
At the moment, we’re offering a flash winter sale. For a limited time only, you can purchase back issues at the cut-price sum of £3 only, and there’s also the last chance of snaffling copies of Issue 8 and Issue 9, which are available for retail purchase for the last time. There are only a handful of each remaining, so do move quickly if you’re something of an archivist.
Those of you who follow us on social media will already know that we have mounted our little Matterhorn of 1,000 print subscribers . While we’re delighted to be gazing out across this particular vista, we do need your help to maintain our status at Britain’s most exciting newish magazine. Do support us by subscribing today.
Welcome to the Layer Cake, Son
While we only publish less than a third of our printed output online, and are only a poor little quarterly magazine at that, we still commissioned six articles that proved extremely popular with our subscribers, readers and lurkers (lurkers, we love you).
First up is Rebecca Watson’s bravura short story from Issue 7; an expansive, playful and daring work of fiction from perhaps the most exciting young British writer currently operating.
Next, we have Fergus Butler-Gallie’s report from Janet’s Bar, a little operation next to South Kensington station that the good burghers of TripAdvisor reckon to be the worst establishment of its kind in the capital. But what makes it so bad? And is that really that bad? We hurried our editor-at-large over to the Cromwell Road to find out more.
In fourth place is Francis Martin’s deep-dive into the Newham state school beloved of the Conservative Party. Accusations of malpractice have long swirled around Brampton Manor Academy, and Francis spent three months speaking to multiple members of staff at this much-lauded establishment. This is the most ambitious thing we’ve ever published, so do check it out if you haven’t done so already.
The bronze medal position goes to Sejal Sukhadwala’s search for Memsahib, a restaurant that no longer exists, in a piece that has been widely celebrated just this week on social media. It’s a beautiful meditation on identity, cuisine and the tragic impermanence of memory.
Back in 2007, Henry Jeffreys aided and abetted in the rise of Russell Brand while working as the publicist for the poodle-haired comedian’s first book. What was it like to work for someone who’s handsome, charming and on the cusp of mega-watt fame? Pretty grim stuff, really. All the same, this feature does provide a wonderful insight into late 00s misbehaviour, and is very much worth your time.
However, in first place was James Bloodworth’s dispatch from his year in Somerset, a piece that is moving, unique and true all at the same time without once lapsing into cliché: we were honoured to publish this article, and delighted to see it duly receive such a wonderful reception.
And as an editorial team, there were a lot of things that we wrote that made you giddy over these last 12 months. For the sake of dignity and brevity, we won’t list them all here, but top of the tree was the smartest and stupidest thing we’ve ever done, a little compendium of inane questions to fabulous minds that almost sent us mad… but seemed to delight everyone who read it: Why Are You Asking Me This?
The Zest of the Best
Okay, here’s the list of the other things that have loaded up the tab-bar in 2021, and we have more than enough stuff to keep you going well into the New Year here. Savour, relish and share it all…
January
Not completely batshit: literary eminence Nicholson Baker investigates how the COVID lab-leak theory has been consistently underplayed.
Nathan Munn found something dark and mysterious lurking in his father’s Montreal basement – luckily it was merely the remains of an actual Nazi soldier’s shooting gallery.
Like all great questions, the New York Times hits on one you may not have considered before, but will find impossible to stop thinking about afterward; If a shrunk-down hand were to squeeze the coronavirus, would it squeeze or shatter?
A total failure! We don’t follow that trash! Why the Proud Boys now mock Donald Trump.
February
Sarah O’Connor writes a stirring State Of The Future piece, which sports the kind of headline usually printed on a tattered newspaper blowing conspicuously across the wasteland in a post-apocalypse movie; Why I Was Wrong To Be Optimistic About Robots.
Ben Okri weaves an unsettling tale of identity and perception, and talks to Deborah Treisman about what it does and doesn’t say.
Only live for people you know, right? Kate Gladstone tracks a nightmare apartment (flat?) share in New York’s West Village.
Yes, you read it right: I Was In A Scientologist Jazz Band, the jaw-dropping mini-music-memoir you didn’t know you needed.
In Poove Power Part 1, and Part 2 (subscribers only) Huw Lemmey offers a compelling dive through the Eye’s record of gay coverage, from the 1960s to the present day, ranging from public schoolboy innuendo to rather darker waters.
Shouldn’t Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley be celebrated further still? Miranda Seymour venerates both mother and daughter in this stirring review.
March
Software developer Matt Korostoff presents one of the most staggering visualisations you’ll see this week; a wearying graphical treatment of the current carceral situation in the United States, which needs to be scrolled, and scrolled, and scrolled to be believed.
Author Sara Gruen is the star of one of the most moreish long-reads we’ve read in a while, detailing the collapse of her life as she attempted to correct a troubling, and deeply engrossing miscarriage of justice saga.
Christian Lorentzen charts the exquisitely managed career of Philip Roth ( the less said about the afterlife of said career, the better).
Harry and Meghan are ultimately going to win: Patrick Freyne writes on the uneasy union between the House of Windsor and Hollywood.
Why does everyone in the mainstream media flick their eyes at Substack? Freddie deBoer suggests some reasons why.
We don’t mean to rat, but there’s a new culprit in town… was the humble marmot responsible for the spread of the Black Plague?
April
Another wry tale in the Irish Times, of a homesick kid who took self-posting to its logical extreme by mailing himself from Australia to Wales.
Daisy Alioto provides a story of involuntarily al fresco artists, punk rock troubadours and the evaporating alt-spaces of New York City, all told through Google Street View.
Clare Considine writes a deep and extremely moving account of a murdered 14-year-old boy and the agony felt by all those he left behind.
From the wreckage of Chernobyl, BBC Future checks back in with the ‘dogs of the zone’ – the radioactive descendants of pets abandoned in the disaster’s aftermath.
May
It’s rare that an interview prompts so much excitement at The Fence, but this past week saw one so long-awaited, many wondered if it would ever arrive, as John Swartzwelder was interviewed by the New Yorker’s Mike Sacks.
Perhaps the hardest thing we’ve read all year: Claire Wills reviews the final report into the horrors of the ‘mother and baby homes’ of 1950s and 1960s Ireland.
June
For WIRED, Megan Molteni discusses the fractious discussions within the WHO about the nature and transmission of COVID aerosol droplets, and The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill.
‘What is House Music?’ asks friend of the newsletter Joe Muggs, as he undertakes the thankless, but thankfully riveting, task of charting the definitive history of House for Beatport.
Some narcotics-grade schadenfreude on offer from Ben Munster, as he details the current troubles of Steve Bannon’s madcap, quasi-fascist Gladiator school in Italy.
Olivia Carville has this disturbing report on AirBnB’s process of ‘making nightmares go away’ when they befall users of their properties.
David Fedman and Cary Karacas perform a low altitude bombing of Malcolm Gladwell’s ‘reckless’, ‘simplistic’ new book, Bomber Mafia, in one of the heaviest critical bombardments we’ve read in a while.
July
In a strange turn of events, the only literary short story to ever go viral has somehow managed to go viral twice, as the discourse put on its best Malkovich voice this week and chanted, in unison: Cat Person, Cat Person, Cat Person.
Alex von Tunzelmann topples the myth of ‘Saddam’s statue’, in a compelling long-read.
Will Freeman digs through the crates to chart the unlikely 80s vogue for printing British video games on vinyl.
For the NYT, Steve Lohr asks whatever happened to IBM’s quiz-champion-defeating supercomputer Watson, in the ten years since it promised to take over the world.
Staying with the NYT, Neil Vigdor got to fulfill every journalist’s dream by telling the story of a man battling a bear for a week in the Alaskan wilderness.
‘The booze has run out and the cocaine has worn off. It is 1am, the Euros are over and England is not hateful or vengeful or resentful. England is tired.’ Jonathan Liew takes the temperature of the country after that heartbreaking defeat at Wembley.
August
Jess McCabe pens a loving tribute to departed friend and colleague Dawn Foster.
Rachel Handler pulls off the interview coup of the week by quizzing her uncle, a one-time skipper at Disney World’s Jungle Cruise attraction, about his thoughts on Disney’s new movie adaptation of the ride.
Anagha Srikanth achieves an enviable headline with her sobering look into our ancestors’ deadly forays into cross-species congress.
Siddharta Deb pens an absorbing and disturbing account of the ‘plot’ to kill Indian PM Naredra Modi.
The anxiety of trying to be an influencer: Emma Garland tots up the true cost of appearing on Love Island.
Thomas Gorton reflects on the structural integrity of memory and the struggle to go home again.
September
Frank Ledwidge lets rip: there will be an inquiry into the Afghan debacle, but don’t expect any accountability for those who were in charge.
Sophie Elmhirst's riveting, and intermittently hilarious, profile of the doomed crypto-ship, MS Satoshi.
Even the most committed adherents of the ‘please stop making things about Harry Potter’ cohort, may be swayed by Arianne Shahvisi's moving, and lyrical tale of a childhood between Essex and Tehran, Iran Was My Hogwarts.
How Britain went bonkers: Clive Martin adroitly captures why this supposedly sensible island has swerved into screeching conspiracy.
October
If you've missed the ongoing fallout from Ozy Media, Ben Smith's exposé of incompetence, grift, and a conference call disaster that will make you squirm out of your skin is the best place to start. Then dig deeper in the undergrowth via Joshua Benton's additional reporting.
Ever hear the one about how the German translators of Terry Pratchett's novels were published with ads for Maggi instant soup worked into the text?
Sarah Maslin Nir charts the unbelievable story of a woman whose New Jersey home was overtaken by sovereign citizen ‘paper terrorists’.
A cool little publication drop some premium eaves at Inferno, London's best-worst nightclub.
November
Ben Jenkins asks the big question: would the Queen, or a variety of elder people currently on Earth, recognise Mario from a photo?
In a probing, and content-warning-necessitating piece, Molly Fisk explores family, trauma and what happened when her uncle John Updike wrote about her father.
The inimitable Michael Gillard turns his eye to Ali Dizaei, disgraced Met cop turned PI-to-the-super-rich, in a tale which has more twists and turns than you might expect.
Catherine Rentz tells the harrowing story of her quest to test decades' worth of untested rape kits.
December
Hailing from Crewe, but living in London, John Merrick writes about the impossibility of working-class achievement.
A five-star review of the global COVID response as the pandemic still rages: John Lanchester drops in with another casual must-read. (Okay, fine, let’s double-Lanch: his April essay on 2021’s Suez Crisis was pretty damn good, too.)
The article of the year? Well, it was for one of our staff members. Kate Connolly tracks a woman’s lifelong quest to bury Leni Riefenstahl, filmmaker, propagandist and Nazi.
Benedict Cumberbatch is about to star in the biopic of Louis Wain’s tragic, brilliant and cat-laden life. But just how crazy was he?
Séamas O’Reilly’s guide to the best comics of 2021.
Lamorna Ash writes on Don DeLillo, velleity, and how she came to believe in the power of prayer.
And Finally
After all that, and on a hopefully not-too-saccharine note, we would like to say thank you to all of you who have supported us in 2021. There is a pleasingly broad church of TF advocates, which says much to the futurity of the project, and gives the very small editorial team beams of hope as we step into the new year.
We should also say that there is a select group of you who have been essential to the magazine’s success this year… you know how you are! Thank you all so much, and we look forward to bringing you all four magazines and 52 (51? 50?) newsletters of unimpeachable quality and unlimited drollery in 2022.
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Next time out, we’ll revert from this hotlink elysium back into some semblance of normality, and we will have some investigations, featurettes and all the rest of it. For various reasons, we’re going to be joining you on Mondays next year. Or at least we will to begin with. So there’ll be no mail-out until the 10th of January.
If there’s anything that you’d like to chat to us about, then do get in touch by replying to this email. The Boxing Day Sale will expire soon, so do grab the opportunity of £3 issues while it lies before you.
And that’s all we have. Happy New Year.
All the best,
TF
We are also delighted to offer a subscription service. For £25 you will receive all four copies of the magazine per year, delivered to your door.
