Dear Readers,
Good evening, and welcome to Off The Fence: a newsletter, simple as that. Issue 22 is being dispatched to subscribers tomorrow from the distribution hub in Margate and will be in the shops across the land from Wednesday.
Issue 22 really is the most beautiful one yet, icy with splendour, daubed with illustrations from Martin Groch, Catherine Potvin, Sandra Navarro, a double-spread map from John Broadley and this astonishing cover from Natalya Lobanova.
Inside, we’ve got writing about mountaineering, middle-aged DJs, middle-aged nights out, catwalk models and on many other subjects not beginning with the word ‘m’. It really is very good – the best yet – and you can buy a copy at this link below or by clicking on that illustration of Chhogori above.
Today, we’ve got our usual buffet of treats and links, but first, we’re kicking off something very special. Longtime readers will remember that we’ve shared the immortal meeting between crosspatch Scouse DJ, Pete Price and ‘Malcolm’ before. Amazingly, we’ve managed to track ‘Malcolm’ – real name, Thomas Hobbs – down to tell his side of the story.
PhoneJacker
‘You’re not 72, you’re 15 pretending to be 72… you prat!’ barked the Liverpudlian DJ Pete Price down my crackly Nokia 3310 mobile.
Back when I was a teenager in 2008, I prank-called Price, who had a long-running show on Liverpool’s Radio City station. Price would attempt to mediate everyday problems shared by concerned members of the public, and I phoned in, pretending to be my late grandad, Malcolm.
It was Grand National weekend, and my idea was to have a ‘serious’ discussion about whether racehorses really go to heaven. Frankly, I was surprised any radio producer would ever greenlight such a stupid idea. ‘Pete would be delighted to speak to you, Malcolm! You sound like a real gentleman.’
Yet a few seconds into our live call, Price successfully detected the youthful timbre at the root of Malc’s honky Hull accent. ‘This is my voice!’ I protested. Despite Pete offering me the opportunity to come clean, I refused to break character. By fully committing to being Malcolm, a seething Price just seemed to get madder and madder.
My older brother recorded everything in another room, absolutely pissing himself with laughter. Uploading the prank call to YouTube under the fake name (because I was terrified the police might track us down) of scousepaul1, I noticed my comedic creation quickly caught fire, currently clocking in at an impressive 126k views.
Among Scouse Twitter and Reddit circles, the ‘Malcolm’ call has been repeatedly referenced as both an act of comedic gold and callous brutality, with some unsure whether it was even a prank at all and if a cruel Pete Price had accidentally castigated a fragile, 72-year-old man.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SN4icIU1qV4
So, when Price unexpectedly agreed to speak to me for this piece, I seriously wondered if he might yell exasperated insults down the line, mad at the person who reduced his broadcasting legacy to mockery from a fictitious 72-year-old man. Fortunately, it was the complete opposite.
‘Are you really the real Malcolm?’ the 78-year-old Price laughed, sounding as cool as a cucumber. ‘Your prank call was probably my all-time favourite! I knew you were a boy behind the old man's voice, though. It was obvious. Your voice was too high.’
In certain weird corridors of the internet, Price’s outbursts at members of the public have solidified into the stuff of legend.
These prank callers include a depressed caller complaining of how everything in his life ‘smells of kebab, Pete’; a ‘live’ alien abduction; and an elderly lady called Dorothy moaning about the local youths. One caller even suggested live on air that the shock jock was actually a lizard wearing a human skin suit, something Price fully leaned into by dressing up as the reptile at various events.
In one memorable call Price yells at a caller who says she refuses to work, calling her a ‘lazy bitch’. I can hazily remember another prank where he loses it even more feverishly, repeatedly describing the person on the other end as a ‘dirty woman.’ I therefore find it very difficult to 100% believe Pete Price was always ‘in’ on the shenanigans. However, Price insisted that was indeed the case.
He explained: ‘What people don’t realise is when I was losing my temper and getting angry, it was all theatre. Maybe I truly got mad two or three times ever, but that only tended to be when people made jokes about the dead or said something homophobic to me. Yes, my bosses received a few complaints and some problems whenever I got into it [with a prank caller]… but then suddenly the advertising and viewing figures went through the roof. We really struck gold. Now that I'm retired from the radio, I actually miss receiving all of the prank calls!’
Whatever the case may be, Pete Price – who nowadays works as a columnist for the local Liverpool Echo newspaper and occasionally appears as a pundit on the right-wing GB News channel – is well aware his legacy is intertwined with kids chuckling while asking him about kebabs or saying something dumb while putting on the voice of their grandpa. ‘At one stage my show had a million listeners, which is unheard of for a local radio station!’ Price concluded.
‘Look: I was gay at a time when it was illegal to be gay. I’ve survived being forced to attend gay conversion sessions. If I could go through all that and still be strong, I always knew I could help others [on the radio] too. When you’ve survived all that I have in life, the odd rude prank call is nothing really. It was honestly an amazing time in my life.’
I cut Pete off to spontaneously yell ‘I’m 72 years old!’ down the blower, my voice once again abruptly transforming into Malcolm’s. Price laughed: ‘I basically became a priest in a confession box for the working-class people of Liverpool. If that meant chatting to the odd Malcolm every now and then, well, so be it.’
You can follow Thomas on Twitter here.
Up in Smoke
There are only 12 ‘Soho Map of Vogues’ maps left, and then they will be sold out… forever more. They really do look amazing, and at £40 and signed by the artist (Paul Cox) they offer pretty staggering value. At an A2 size, they’re a perfect conversation piece too, or you can give one as a present to someone really deserving in your life. Or you can give one to yourself, either way, these will probably be gone by tomorrow, so move quickly.
Give the Gift of Fencemas
Lots of you have given gift subscriptions before, and it really is very easy to do so, and now you can give them for one year only for the undeserving brutes in your life. A subscription starts at just £24.99 for the year and will score you lots of cool points and save you from the tedium of wrapping. If you need any help on our shop system just email support@the-fence.com and the editor will attend to you promptly.
Sweater Weather
Legendary journalist, Simon Hattenstone, voted the second nicest Boomer hack in our survey last year, has done a very nice job threading together the history of streaking, almost as nice as the piece that Bethany Elliot wrote for us on the very same subject: it is a fascinating arena, to be sure.
Do Get in Touch
We’ve had some really fantastic pitches coming through lately, thank you to everyone who has been sending them through. If you work in a world that is frequently misrepresented or misunderstood, or is even totally absent from the media, then we would love to hear from you. Send us an email to editorial@the-fence.com and we’ll take it from there.
In the Midnight Hour
Whatever happened to After Dark, the iconic talkshow that every researcher dreams of bringing back? Allow us to direct you to this fascinating longish piece by Sebastian Cody, the original producer.
Their YouTube channel is full of gems, not least this short:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bIRNgBKr8k
In Case You Missed It
Jessica Olin reviews Lisa Marie Presley’s bonkers life, growing up at Graceland, marrying Nicholas Cage and dating Michael Jackson.
A spectacularly bitchy review of Simon Jenkins’ brief new book on British architecture, courtesy of Jonathan Meades.
Why did Alice Munro stay silent?
You’ve Got Gail: an interview with Yael Meija, the elusive founder of Gail’s.
And Finally
Nothing gets us going like some archive channel hopping, so we were overjoyed to discover the existence of a YouTube channel hosting vintage clips from ITV’s Channel Island television service; a page we are forced to describe as nothing less than a Channel Channel channel.
Here you’ll find a whole host of old ads, showcasing wares available everywhere from Jersey to Sark.
But none come close to the pure, raw power of this ad for Benest Chipsteaks, delivered with all the patrician gravitas of a declaration of war.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rS7H_DBbXfg
That’s it. We’ll be back on Wednesday with another mail-out. If you’d like to speak to the editor about an order, email support@the-fence.com. All pitches to editorial@the-fence.com. Nice and easy. Speak soon.
All the best,
TF