Dear Readers,
Good evening, and welcome to Off The Fence, the weekly newsletter for our quarterly print magazine. There have been some winning snaps of Issue 13 ‘out in the wild’ – Houman Barekat was taken with our five-a-side scores compendium (public service journalism at its finest), and the whole mag was given the accolade of ‘chef’s kiss’ from Michelin-starred chef, James Ramsden, and one clever cookie managed to work out the visual inspo for the cover.
Today, we’ve got a one-off deal for newsletter readers. The first six people to subscribe to the print mag will receive a free ‘Zest of the Rest’, which is Issues 3, 4 and 9. So that’s seven magazines for the price of four, but you’ll have to move fast to this link here – we won’t be repeating this offer or offering any price reductions for the rest of the year, so there’s no better time to subscribe than now.
We lead with a dispatch from our editor-at-large, Fergus Butler-Gallie, who has returned to his native county of Kent.
Down on the Marshes
I was the only person who got off the train at Minster. When I left, for a more familiar part of Kent, I was the only one who got on. Minster is the railway station that serves Manston, the airfield and detention centre on the Isle of Thanet in the county’s northeastern corner. The village itself, which spreads out between the high security fence of the former airport is quiet as well – it’s almost empty.
I am from Kent, another marshy but different part of it, far to its south. I’ve got used to that perceptible curl of a London lip when the county is mentioned.
Though it does feel different to the rest of the country. In part, it is its closeness to the continent. As a child, I remember the television occasionally being able to pick up French channels – their looser interpretation of the watershed was a gift to any teenage boy. Today, when visiting my parents on the edge of the Romney Marsh, my phone will show me algorithmic adverts in Dutch. My girlfriend describes this part of the world as being like Sleepy Hollow – the Dutch settlement in upstate New York transformed by Washington Irving and Tim Burton into a byword for that particular style of creepiness.
But it goes deeper. History has differentiated Kent just as much as geography has. The county’s motto is ‘Invicta’, a reference to William I’s decision to avoid Kent altogether and march on London, and to subdue the rest of England from there. Consequently, Anglo Saxon-hangovers survived. Inheritance remained along Saxon gavelkind lines – hence why Kent has no big estates or vast expanses of farmland but rather small, awkward settlements.
Kent’s proximity to the reality of migration has been cynically utilised by politicians on both aisles. Now, if you search Kent on social media, one story in particular proliferates: the Manston camp. To critics of the scheme Kent is ‘a toilet’, its people ‘fucking stupid’ and reaping the whirlwind of ‘voting for Brexit’. Conversely, a narrative has emerged on the right of ‘ordinary working-class people’ in Kent being deliberately ‘sidelined’, a conspiracy by the media and politicians to stop the truth of the ‘invasion’ getting out.
But away from the media circus, Minster has its own show to put on: the village pantomime this year is Little Red Riding Hood. It is advertised on the village noticeboard between a poster for The Michael Bublé experience (featuring a tribute to Judy Garland and Liza Minelli) and a concert to raise money for Ukrainian refugees. Other adverts were for fitness classes, church services and a sing-along version of Grease. Flyers advocating solidarity with dehumanised migrants and recruitment posters for groups to hold the invading hordes at bay were both conspicuously absent. Minster village is as close as you can get to the focal point of the crisis – and yet it all seems very far away.
I asked an acquaintance who works nearby what he thought the biggest issue was for the area. ‘Bins’, he told me, with the earnestness of one who meant it. After my solitary arrival, I wandered up to the church, founded as a nunnery in the 670s by St Domneva with the blood money from the murder of her brothers. The rule they adopted was that of St Benedict, which states ‘all guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as if they were Christ’. Nuns are still there, just round the corner, but on a cold November Saturday, the church was closed. The pubs were not, however, so I wandered up to them.
At the New Inn, a seven-a-side team staggered in for a post-game round of lagers, all chat and teasing: ‘Go on, message her!’ one encouraged the other. I made small talk with a man about his dog. Had the place been put on the map, after the Home Secretary’s visit? His companion didn’t even know she’d been.
Someone else told me that they don’t get many visits to this part of Kent: ‘we have to clutch at straws a bit. We had the cream of British comedy at Whitstable in the summer’. Who was that, I asked. ‘Josh Widdicombe: with the teeth’. ‘The coast is alright but’, he continued, ‘they never come inland. Not unless they have to.’ This was backed up by an elderly man with a labrador when I asked if things had got busier. He smiled a thin smile and said, ‘No, they only ever just pass through’.
It was the second time the phrase had come up. Both times it wasn’t said with resentment, or anger, just fact. Thanet is that place you pass through, always has been. Romans, pilgrims, ministers, migrants: all the same. ‘They either stop at Canterbury, or carry on to Broadstairs,' one man said, ‘or they go through altogether’. He motioned with a sweep of his hand towards the grey and empty sky.
I made my way to another pub. I sat and smoked in the dark out the back with a lady who’d lived there all her life. It was a conversation I’ve had across the Kent countryside – from the marsh in the south via the ‘Garden of England’ and on to the heart of the Weald. It was a fear of houses being built without amenities to match, a list of closed businesses, rising prices and memories of childhood. The Manston situation wasn’t mentioned and when I brought it up it met with a shrug and a drag. The focus was on those things that once were there – but aren’t now, and I remember that these are people’s lives and memories, rather than a set of graphs and lines and headlines.
Another lady chatted to me: ‘It’s all well and good if you live in a town with amenities but right now, we don’t’. It began to drizzle and she crushed the cigarette into the floor, extinguishing our only light. ‘Take care fella’ she said as she went back in. The assumption was that I – Man of Kent though I am – was just passing through too. Passing through: like Hengist or Augustine or Suella Braverman. It’s what the media will do presently; and at some point, whether it is back to Europe, or on to the cities and towns of the rest of the UK, it’s what those currently being held just outside the village will eventually do.
When they have, Kent will remain, marshy and contemplative, the county and her people detached from the tragic pantomime they are forced to play a part in, just waiting for the next group to pass through.
You can follow Fergus on Twitter here.
Hi, Historian Here!
We asked a number of leading historians the following question: ‘What is the single greatest fact in modern political history in 2022?’ There are entries from Linda Colley, Sir Richard Evans and David Abulafia, and you can read the whole thing here. We are planning on pestering some eminent barristers for the next edition of this format…
The Chief Secretary to the Admiralty
After promising to restore ‘comedy’ to Twitter, South African billionaire Elon Musk has now banned accounts which impersonate other people without clearly delineating that they are a ‘parody’. While this move has proved controversial with many people, we very much welcome the news. Parody accounts are a curse and a pox, as we learned to our cost when a grindingly unfunny ‘Mark Francois’ account ripped off John Phipps’ pitch-perfect impersonation of Samuel Pepys’ diaries. More power to your elbow, Elon!
Tom Stoppard’s GCSE Coursework
In Issue 4, we wrote a silly listicle called ‘All Possible Plots by Major Authors’, which is probably the most popular thing we’ve ever done, and did the rounds again last week as it discovered a fresh tranche of readers – if you haven’t yet had the pleasure, do give it a read. Phillip Gourevitch just described it as ‘pretty good.’
More Goblins, Vicar?
It’s a gala week for those of you who like a bit of Fergus B-G. In Issue 13, he writes about his attempts to procure a goblin from Zimbabwe for his girlfriend’s birthday – it’s one of the funniest things we’ve published this year, and it’s now available to enjoy online, though you’ll have to check out the print mag for the John Broadley illustrations of Fergus’ Pevsner tour with his goblin.
Tokoloshe Storm
Remember, we do have that deal we spoke about at the top of today’s mail-out, and even if you’re not in the first six to score the free Zest, there’s no better time to subscribe than now – a sub is much cheaper than nearly every other U.K quarterly, and quite a few Substacks, too. And we will summon a horde of dwarf-like water sprites to haunt the homes of every broadsheet newspaper columnist and editor who reads this newsletter every week without signing up – we’d be happy to pay a premium to Mr Kafura for the pleasure.
Spice Up Your Life
Geri Halliwell is now 50 years old – and she’s packed a lot in that time. A half-Spanish Watford girl who went from being a Page 3 pin-up to a global pop icon, and is the now dutiful wife to a racing tycoon, Halliwell has lost some cool points for that Nadine Dorries photo, but she’s an eccentric and likeable figure – as is richly evidenced in this all-access documentary she made after leaving The Spice Girls in 1999, which ends with her choosing a puppy at Battersea Dogs’ Home with George Michael. The whole programme makes for compelling viewing, and is made by Molly Dineen, who is very cool indeed, if you need another reason to justify watching it.
Wilfred Owen on the One Show
Over the weekend, a Royal British Legion appeal in a Home Counties Tesco took a hybrid approach to charity – by deploying soldiers with baguettes slung over their soldiers. If you think Remembrance Sunday has become unmoored from its original, sombre purpose, then your interest might be piqued by ‘Giant Poppy Watch’ – a compendium of all the most OTT displays of performative ‘respect’ by the British media and the public at large. If you are yet to witness the Cookie Monster wearing a poppy next to a grim-faced Chris Tarrant, then you’ve got a whole evening’s scrolling ahead of you.
The Banality of Evil
A couple of editions back, we profiled Mark Powell, the wideboy Soho tailor with connections to David Hunt, the ‘untouchable’ London crime boss who managed to stay out of the headlines for decades. There’s never been any footage of Hunt in the public sphere, and given that he headbutted a journalist who once had the temerity to approach him at his family home in Essex, it’s amazing to see footage of Casa Hunt followed with a long interview with the man himself as he talks about his hobby as a pigeon-fancier. Given Hunt’s litigious nature, there’s no knowing how long this video – which is simultaneously deadly boring and completely fascinating – will be live on the internet, so do check it out now. It was uploaded only this week.
Fizzing Over the Brim
In Issue 13, we collaborated with the great Paul Cox to bring you the ‘Soho Map of Cokes’, in which we celebrate London’s most iconic neighbourhood through the medium of carbonated beverages – you can see the whole piece in detail here. A lot of you have expressed interest in purchasing a print of the artwork, and so we are likely to proceed with a limited run. If you’re keen to get your hands on a copy, then reply to this email and we’ll put your name down on the list.
In Case You Missed It
Friend of the mag, Rebecca Watson, takes George Saunders to lunch at the Charlotte Street Hotel.
100 not out: the great Ronald Blythe has reached three figures, and you can celebrate his achievement with this interview, where he discusses a brief, drunken affair with Patricia Highsmith.
Another friend of the mag (!), Tanjil Rashid, interviews another celebrated author, Kazuo Ishiguro, about the novelist’s love for film.
Filed a week before his death, here’s Ian Jack’s last piece for the Guardian – a toast to the BBC. And don’t miss Peter Wilby’s tribute to him for the New Statesman.
Sam Thielman dives into the beautiful broken worlds of Hayao Miyazaki
Some billionaires buy social media companies to drive themselves and everyone else insane. Others sell them for a peaceful life of absurd comfort, wealth and fulfillment with their world-famous wife. Abram Brown profiles Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian for The Information.
And Finally
Vicious cruelty is inbuilt to reality television: some shows, like Love Island, are good at masking it; others, like Big Brother in its earlier iterations, try to find ways of intellectualising it. So there’s something truly unique about I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here, a show that puts cruelty front and centre, yet is regarded as one of the tamer reality TV shows: light entertainment for all the family. Now with Matt Hancock in the Australian jungle, what trials will the public subject him to? Will he be forced to snack on camel penis as Ant and Dec (the nation’s favourite goblins), titter from the sidelines? Or will he ‘faint’ live on television, as the crackpot ‘nutritionist’ Gillian McKeith did, and then get roundly mocked for it? Hopefully, the public might just ignore him and vote him out immediately – that will be the only humiliation he won’t be able to bear.
*
That’s it for this week – do remember that we have that sweet, sweet deal ongoing, there’s a link just below. And if you have any queries about postal orders, or you have any tips, or you just want to chat shop, then do reply to this email and we’ll get back to you shortly. We look forward to joining you next Monday.
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.
