Dear Readers,
Welcome to Off The Fence, a weekly mail-out that has, of late, proclaimed that there is ‘exciting news’ around the corner. Today, we can announce the news: our first book will be available to purchase in shops from September 29. Thanks to the good people of Headline, Sh*t Literary Siblings has been a real, real joy to put together – and it’s a secret we've been sitting on for some months now. Inspired by this article we published in January 2021, the book celebrates the also-rans and second chancers of the canon, who were never quite given their moment to shine, but now, thanks to us, have their day in the dashing sunlight.
You can read up on the intricacies of the deal at this link right here, but we would, if we can, implore you to circumvent the crashing horde and pre-order the book now, today, so that you can be first to bless your palms with a red-hot copy of the first TF masterpiece.
We’ve got some various bits today, and also a crossword. The first person to supply the correct set of answers will win a year’s subscription to the print magazine, which is a pretty good deal.
But first, a missive that’s both from, and about, some blokes named Mark Blacklock.
I’m Seeing Double Here, Four Mark Blacklocks!
I first became aware of the other Mark Blacklock around the turn of the millennium, when I turned up for a fortnight's sub-editing on the now-defunct Sunday magazine of the News of the World. The features editor accused me, directly, in front of the entire office, of not being Mark Blacklock. I was in my mid-twenties and infrequently sober, but it was the one aspect of reality that I was reasonably confident about, so I stood my ground. Following some bizarre conversational jousting, we found consensus: there was another Mark Blacklock who had worked for many years at the Express, where the features ed and he had crossed paths. I was packed off to a back desk to check the crossword answers (words of no more than four letters).
A few years later, while working for the Telegraph, I received a payment I wasn’t expecting and gratefully trousered it, thinking – as an eternal optimist – that it might be a tax rebate. When it happened a second time, I discovered that the other Mark Blacklock was also an occasional contributor. I found his contact details and let him know what had happened to his invoices. We enjoyed a humorous exchange (‘Hi Mark! It’s Mark.’) in which we discovered that we were also both from Wearside.
Over the intervening years, I figured that the fact that the other Mark Blacklock was a prolific news journalist might work in my favour when I pitched my slightly wonky feature ideas to magazines. Searches for our name produced hundreds of byline hits. Admittedly, many of these were appended to stories like ‘Is This the Most Evil and Hated Leader in the World?’ (Express; March 31st, 2005), and that was quite different to my pitch about US sonic weapons programmes, but it surely did no harm. Blacklock, much like a covert sonic weapon device, had range.
I was loosely aware that Mark was no longer at the Express from 2009 onwards: my vanity searches told me he was on Twitter as @MarxMedia, and was now a media consultant and lecturer at Northumbria University. I quietly seethed as his following exceeded mine, but otherwise found it gently comforting to know that the other me was still out there. I was en route to becoming a lecturer myself! I also noted his Twitter handle, and wondered if he’d been radicalised by working for Richard Desmond, which would have been an altogether rational response.
Last December the doppelganger situation took an abrupt off-road turn. I was tagged by @BeijingtoBritain as the author of an article published in The Global Times, an English-language organ of the Chinese state, questioning the British government’s protestations of anti-democratic electoral practices in Hong Kong. I panicked – what would this do to the brand? – before realising that the answer was: ‘probably nothing’. I shared a byline correction and the other Mark Blacklock politely confirmed that it was his work.
Things flared up again in February when ‘we’ attacked Liz Truss, condemning her idiocy in recommending have-a-go freedom fighters to tool up for Ukraine. It was “not a good look” to be writing for The Global Times, one random Twitter follower told me. I did not disagree, either with myself or the angry user.
The pieces have continued monthly, attacking NATO, Truss again (still agree), the monarchy (hard agree) and more recently The West In Its Totality (it’s complicated). I’ve even been contacted by a Hong Kong researcher who is seeking out all Western contributors to The Global Times – apparently, many of them don’t actually exist.
It’s quite curious: I don’t personally wish to contribute to Chinese state propaganda and would prefer to work for free and independent media, like The Fence, but neither do I feel it’s my place to judge the other Mark. He remains a genial correspondent and is open about his motivation when I ask him if he feels compromised. ‘After 45 years in the British tabloid media, I'm fairly sanguine about writing for a platform with an agenda,’ he tells me. ‘It doesn't really bother me. I'm not told what to write, and what gets published goes up as written. As I had always previously worked as a straight news journalist, it's quite refreshing to be able to express an opinion.’
Fair enough, I guess. We’re not in lockstep, but then who is? My range expands. I hope I’ll draw the line at Russia Today.
Mark Blacklock – or, at least, one of the two Mark Blacklocks referenced above – is a novelist, historian and Fence contributor. You can find him at @DrBlacklock on Twitter.
At Your Service
Last week, we covered Prince Charles’ lifelong associations with what are known in tabloidese as a whole bunch of dodgy foreign billionaires. After his latest incident with a Qatari politician, the heir to the throne has vowed that he will no longer take cash donations for his charities. Which is good of him. But questions regarding the regent’s suitability for the crown continue to circulate.
His friendship with Jimmy Savile is well-known, as the Yorkshire paedophile continues to haunt the present day nearly a decade after his death. But the figure of Laurens van der Post has started to recede from contemporary memory. The South African writer and explorer was a mentor to the young prince, and was made godfather to Prince William. Less discussed is the fact that at the age of 46, van der Post raped and impregnated a 14-year-old girl who was entrusted to his care, resulting in a child that he never acknowledged. What's that Cervantes quote about ‘the company you keep’?
A Load of Modern Toss
After last week’s clip, we thought we had drained the Brian Sewell Content Pump: but we were wrong. But a reader, Chris Coates, alerts us to the time that the young critic masturbated for Salvador Dalí.
Funnily enough, one of the few of the YBAs to meet with Sewell-approval were the Chapman brothers, specifically their Goya-tribute, Hell, which ‘profoundly moved, excited and distressed’ Brian back in 2003.
And, 19 years later, Jake Chapman, of the Chapman brothers, has executed a trio of cry-laughing-face emojis underneath an Instagram post by this very publication. To be fair, we had quoted him in a piece about Dominic Cummings nicking an artwork called from the Government Art Collection but still: a very pleasing ouroboros of self-pleasure.
Bound and Galleyed
We’re all very proud of the way in which our work has been picked up by some of the leading publications in the Anglosphere: we’ve had work syndicated by the Times, the Guardian (three times) and now the legendary American magazine Harper’s have excerpted Jamie Fewery’s brilliantly funny insider piece about the curious phenomenon that was Fifty Shades of Grey.
It’s a joy to see our work recognised by the biggest names in the biz, and we’re excited to see the project continue to grow beyond London.
Crossword Ahoy!
Here’s the cryptic number. The first person to supply a correct set of answers, via email, to this address, will win a year’s free subscription to the magazine.
Pelican Bay Pinot
Sonny Barger, the founder of the Hells Angels, somehow made it to the grand old age of 83. In his obituary here, we were fascinated to learn that he was an unlikely wine fan: lending his name to bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon at $50 dollars a pop.
As many of you will know, the verdant Californian countryside has become recognised as one of the world’s great wine regions in the last sixty years, but over that same time, the state has become infamous for its murderous prison gangs, who are locked up in hellish blocks under near 24-hour lockdown. It now costs more to house a prisoner in a California jail than it does to spend a year at Harvard.
Might we humbly suggest to Governor Newsom that there might be an imaginative way of tackling this? Look to Sonny Barger, and turn these prisons into vineyards, tasking each gang to compete in a violent version of the Judgement of Paris. It might be hard to produce a light and zippy chardonnay in a communal toilet basin, but if anyone can do it, it’s the Aryan Brotherhood.
In Case You Missed It
Iain Sinclair takes a despairing stroll through moneyed London for the LRB, and writes a piece so stuffed with great lines it would be a shame to quote just one. We will, however, submit that it features one the finest descriptions of Eastenders ever committed to print.
For The Quietus, Marc Burrows produces, by some distance, the best Glasto grumble we’ve read this year.
Sixth Tone’s Wu Peiyue tells the jaw-dropping story of Zhemao, the ‘diplomat’s daughter' who’s spent ten years inventing fake Russian history for Chinese Wikipedia.
Jean Garnett pens an incisive and exhilaratingly candid take on her open marriage.
Kaitlyn Tiffany reflects on how, why and when Everything Happens So Much.
And Finally
Tennis might be the most elegant sport, so it is a shame that it produces so many inelegant players, who either play the game with a crass, direct energy, or just have a frankly unwinning personality (and even Roger Federer, the player who launched a thousand essays, has that bizarre friendship with Anna Wintour to explain for himself).
There’s rarely a player at Wimbledon that everyone is rooting for. There’s only been one in recent memory. In 2001, Goran Ivanišević entered the tournament as a wildcard, ranked 125 in the world, having been runner-up at the competition in 1992, 1994 and 1998. The big-serving Croat aced his way through to the final, where he played the Australian, Pat Rafter. We join the action in the 17th game of the deciding set, as Goran serves for the cup, and produces eight of the most exciting minutes in the history of sport.
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That’s it for this week. As ever, if you’d like to send us any thought, tip, correction, pointer, bon mot insult or threat, just reply to this email and the whole editorial team will see it – you might even make it into next week’s outing. We look forward to joining you next Monday with another bit of exciting news about something we’ve been working on for over a year (it’s not a book). Until then.
All the best,
TF
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