Dear Readers,
Good evening, and welcome to Off The Fence, a weekly newsletter that is back with another bumper edition – we’ve got Issue 14 arriving later this week, so if you subscribe today, you will receive two pieces of post in a week from a quarterly magazine, which really is very exciting for everyone concerned, and you’ll get an extra magazine for the year – five mags for the price of four. We are, as ever, quite literally giving it away.
If your subscription has lapsed, do make sure to sign up again today, as we are running through the full database and striking people off the list (with great sadness, we may add). And if you want to check the status of your order or change your address, then please email subscriptions@the-fence.com and we will get that sorted for you.
To business. We’ve got a tribute to Victor Lewis-Smith, some short sharp sentences on Harry and Meghan, but we begin with a featurette about the ladies (and the men!) of 85 Albert Embankment.
The Girllbosses of Vauxhall Cross
Plaudits to Helen Warrell, who has scored the dreamiest dream of a commission: interviewing ‘Q’ in her office at MI6, as part of a broader piece about the three women director-generals in Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, and how the most clandestine government agency is increasingly of the belief that ‘women makes the best spies of all.’
Examining how Daphne Park and Meta Ramsay were overlooked for leadership roles in the past, the piece follows ‘Rebecca’, ‘Kathy’ and ‘Ada’ around secret sites in London as they relate how they manage their top-secret-work/life balance.
It’s admirable stuff, but it misses out one key part of modern spycraft. Indeed, the article is at great pains to remove the MI6 of 2022 from associations with Mata Hari and the base seduction methods practiced by those naughty Russians at the GRU.
However, The Fence understands that ‘sexpionage’ is still a vital part of MI6’s arsenal, and that, if anything, it is a weapon that is being deployed with greater frequency against hostile powers like ISIS and other Islamic militants, who are not so easily swayed by a briefcase full of greenbacks.
While we didn’t think it was worthwhile reaching out to Richard ‘C’ Moore’s office for comment, let us finish with a comment made to the Church Committee by former FBI assistant director William C. Sullivan: ‘The use of sex is a common practice among intelligence services all over the world. This is a tough, dirty business.’
Some Full Fat Flavour
There are now only two ‘Soho Map of Cokes’ left remaining for sale, and just look how insanely comely they are. We’re only selling them for £40, and they’re on A2 size, signed by the artist, Paul Cox – so an opportunity for the cartography n’ Coke fiend in your life, and also a real chance to score some artwork from a legendary illustrator at a bargain basement price.
If you would like to get your hands on one, simply reply to this email and we will invoice you directly. And there are a fair few of you looking to pick your maps from the office – please let us know when you are dropping by in advance, and we will get them to you before Christmas.
The Monk And The Minister
In an appropriate deployment of the hackneyed phrase, ‘the trial of the century’, the Irish gang leader, Gerry Hutch, is on trial for the murder of Kinahan Cartel boss, David Byrne, in Dublin’s Criminal Courts of Justice. Much attention has focused on the alleged links between Sinn Fein’s leader, Mary-Lou McDonald and Jonathan Dowdall, a former SF councillor who is the prosecution’s key witness.
Using surveillance tapes of Dowdall and Byrne in a Land Cruiser travelling through Northern Ireland, the conversation suggests that the duo met with senior republicans to try and finesse a peace deal between the Hutches and the Kinahans. But who supplied the ‘yokes’ used in the murder of Byrne? People on both sides of the border will be watching the trial closely.
Recollection May Vary
Prince Harry and Meghan’s Netflix show scored something of a hat-trick, after esteemed BBC journalist, Mishal Husain, countered the Duchess of Sussex’s assertion that their engagement interview was an ‘orchestrated reality show.’ The BBC. Buckingham Palace. And, of course, the Archbishop of Canterbury. A real 1-2-3.
Which beloved British institution is going to have to issue a diplomatically worded statement after next week’s episode drop? The NHS? The National Trust? Or will Alan Bennett be firing off a letter from Gloucester Crescent to Montecito? We will find out shortly…
Orlando’s Odyssey
Those of us on the editorial team with a feline predilection were gratified to see Michelle’s Taylor account of moving her American cat across the Atlantic prove such a palpable hit earlier this year. And you won’t find such an ungainly sentence in Michelle’s piece, which is beautifully written and warmly amusing – do read it here.
Baubles and Bells
Jade Angeles Fitton is one of our most prolific and popular contributors, so we were delighted to see that her first book, Hermit, will be published with Hutchinson Heinemann next year.
If you’re new to her writing, do check out her insider account of working at London Fashion Week, replete with cameo appearances from Kanye West, Anna Wintour and a pre-sobriety Kate Moss.
Rob Macfarlane’s Magical Mystery Tours
We’ve got a very exciting piece coming later this week, a very acute reading of Guy Shrubsole’s ‘Lost Rainforests of Britain’ project from a brilliant young botanist. Keep your eyes peeled for that one if you a) enjoy superb literary criticism b) are interested in the management of the British countryside and c) resent Ben Goldsmith’s outsized role in public life. Anyway, we digress. Two years ago, we published a piece on the state of nature writing by Richard Smyth that is still one of the biggest hits we’ve ever had. It’s a wonderfully wry article and a little bit sharp – albeit in a very welcome way.
Islands in the Revenue Stream
This afternoon brought grim tidings, as the American literary quarterly Bookforum is going to shut down after its next issue. This follows hard on the closure of London-based art magazine, Elephant, and last week’s news that Astra Magazine will only extend to two issues. Like the agents packing g-strings for assignments in downtown Raqqa, this is a tough, dirty business.
That’s why we need people to keep signing up for a subscription at the very, very agreeable price of £30 for the year. If you read this newsletter every week, and you haven’t signed up for the print magazine yet – go on, treat yourself, treat a friend, and keep building The Fence.
In Case You Missed It
This week marked a seminal anniversary in British musical history. The Quietus’ Daniel Dylan Wray, on 30 Years of Artificial Intelligence, the Warp compilation that launched a thousand ships.
Rachel Cunliffe asks why we keep getting ill.
Sally Rooney talks Ulysses.
John Ganz answers a bad faith question in good faith in What Makes Fascism Fascist.
‘Nobody wants to be an art handler and in a sense nobody is’. Paul McAdory talks about packing paintings for our friend at Dirt.
Dan Friedman assesses the deadening grift behind the Hunter Biden case and the Twitter Files, for Mother Jones.
And Finally
Today, we’ve lost one of the great golden satirists, Victor Lewis-Smith, who has passed away after a short illness at the age of 65. Fiercely protective over his work, he only released his finest hour a few years back, when he published the audio of him calling Princess Diana in the guise of Stephen Hawking. If you haven’t had the pleasure of listening to this shining gem of a prank, you can dip into it here.
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That’s it for today. We’re going to be back with a Books of the Year guide later this week, but it’s going to be with a little twist. In the meantime, if you want to talk to a member of the editorial team, reply to this email, and we’ll come back to you shortly. And we hope you’re staying snug this evening.
All the best,
TF
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