Dear Readers,
Good afternoon and welcome back to Off The Fence, a newsletter whose welds and rivets are hidden by the finest craftsmanship.
Like last week, the issue finds itself in fine print company, and can again be seen adorning the displays of London’s myriad newsstands. It has also been brightening up some strikingly framed bath time (NSFW) – you don’t see Economist subscribers sending pictures like these. Thank you, too, to Justin Deegan, who hasn’t done a photo but has written something very nice about us instead.
All excellent reminders to keep sending your photos to editorial@the-fence.com for the chance to win a lovely bottle of something or other. As long as the mag’s in it, it has a chance, although there are many bonus points for creativity. And if you don’t have a copy of the magazine with which to take a picture, why not subscribe?
Our most exciting news of the week is that we have opened up applications for two new editorial assistants. This would not have been possible without all of you who donated so generously to our Fighting Fund. This is just one of the many exciting new developments your support will facilitate in the coming year. Thank you to everyone who donated. If this sounds like a position you might be interested in please send your CV and a cover letter to editorial@the-fence.com. We’re looking for someone with organisational prowess, skill with the algorithm and a love for life in London. Get cracking, we look forward to welcoming two of you in the near-future.
With that said, we move on to the heart of the things. This week we’ve been pounding the WhatsApps to bring you some joy.
Talk to the Hand
The political class has arguably never been more despised than it is now, and as we discovered, it’s with good reason. Speaking to various SW1 nodes and politico insiders over the last week, our phones were submerged with uncouth tales as we asked: who is the rudest politician in Westminster?
We have included entries from those who lost their seat recently, as most of those nominated are very much ‘politicians’ in the public’s mind, and, well, because some of the stories are really funny.
For it will not surprise you that Matt Hancock is on the list, nor Kwasi Kwarteng or Gavin Williamson, who is ‘notoriously rude to his own staff.’ Or George Osborne – one source relayed how he looked after the former Chancellor’s son for a whole week, and at the end Osborne failed to ‘pay me, thank me or acknowledge me in any way.’
Of the current crop of Labour politicians, there are multiple nominations for Lisa Nandy. One source relays how Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker of the House, ‘pushed in front of me in the breakfast queue in the Commons terrace cafeteria and then told the staff that the fried eggs under the heat lamps looked “raw” and asked them to cook some fresh ones.’ Another insider says that Chris Curtis, the baby-faced member for Milton Keynes, ‘quite directly told me he was leaving our conversation because he wanted to network with other people.’
Delusions of grandeur are common across the political spectrum: former Green co-supremo Carla Denyer is known for demanding cars (electric or at least hybrid, we assume) to ferry her to interviews with journalists in Parliament.
We had several nominations for the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the position that Rachel Reeves famously loves to remind chippy members of the public that she holds. ‘She is grumpy and sweary,’ says one; ‘always combative to Fleet Street’ says another. It was tempting to award the prize to Lewisham’s finest export, given that she’s the second most powerful person in the country, but we had a runaway winner, and she’s pretty influential too.
The leader of the Conservative Party, Kemi Badenoch, is so renowned for her rudeness that one source simply writes, ‘don’t forget to mention Kemi.’ While another messages: ‘It’s Kemi, but it’s too obvious.’ Her abruptness has been a trademark since before she entered politics, as we detailed in a newsletter some years ago. Despite the best efforts of her party and her supporters in the press, she can’t mask her more unsavoury attributes – even her staff have stopped filtering it out, as evidenced by yesterday’s parting dig on the defecting Suella Braverman, published seemingly verbatim before an immediate and bashful retraction from party HQ. One gets the feeling that she’d wear this label as a badge of honour, though it’s likely the only taste of victory she’ll manage in her current role.
Vroom, Vroom (Cute)
Many of our contributors go on to great things, and have of course, done great things, but more often than not these achievements are book-based, so allow us a brief moment to celebrate Bertie Brandes, who is the screenwriter on Charli XCX’s film, The Moment, which has just launched at Sundance. Here is a lovely photo of BB at the premiere with a bearded man.
Bertie has written for us since Issue 6, and her spry wit can be best seen in this piece entitled ‘Confessions of a London Femcel’. We are looking forward to seeing the Brat biopic on the big screen.
Coming to You from Ouagadougou
Now feels like as good a time as any to check back in with TikTok’s favourite dictator, Captain Ibrahim Traoré of Burkina Faso. Why? Well the man has just survived his most recent and serious assassination attempt. (Along with two failed counter-coups, the alleged 16 attempts on the Captain’s life are already a healthy start on his presumed efforts to best Castro’s record of surviving 638 failed assassinations).
What makes Traoré so odd, though, is the amount of information about him that is mediated through social media, especially TikTok. Some of this is just ridiculous AI nonsense, like this video of Traoré and his pals dancing, or this epic voiceover about Traoré’s plans for a new motorway which describes the proposed eight-lane speedway as ‘so big it sounds fictional’. But it actually makes parsing a clear image of the man and his administration quite difficult. For example, some of those 16 assassination attempts are under heavy scrutiny; nothing enhances a leader’s reputation nor justifies the need for harsh rule like the threat of an assassin.
Certainly, online content pushes him as a beret-donned anti-imperialist lone wolf, but Burkina Faso has continued to accept World Bank loans under Traoré, who is not, despite claims otherwise, on INTERPOL’s arrest list. Indeed, Burkina Faso remains a user of the CFA Franc, a currency which effectively removes a country’s monetary policy, with the currency fixed to the Euro. To go with this, there are a huge number of AI speeches by him, containing a fair few good points, and which sound like they could be his opinions. But who knows? It is a fascinating conflagration of geopolitics, neo-colonialism and AI. And we’re not the only ones weighing in.
Pease Pudding Cold
First they came for Zizzi, and we said nothing, because we do not eat at Zizzi. And so on, and so on. Private equity has bitten chunks out of every sector of the British economy, but has shown itself to have a particular predilection for our restaurants. As one of the food trends launched by Nigel Lawson rather than his more famous daughter, few forces have shaped the way we eat in the UK like the appetites of the PE practitioners. Writing beautifully and exhaustively in our Best Issue Ever – the famous Issue 26 – Ian Trueger covers the history in sparkling style with some heavyweight interviewees. Tuck in while it’s in front of the paywall, though remember what they say about free lunches.
The Bad Boys of Brexit
Should the latest Tory defection to the Faragiste flanks be treated as ‘breaking news’? It’s all a bit dated to our admittedly tired eyes. We reckon that any journalist looking to write something truly newsworthy about the Reform Party would do well to build on this fascinating profile of Arron Banks by Ed Caesar, which was published some six years ago – Jesus, six years ago – and which poses a number of questions that are still to be satisfactorily answered.
The Metre’s Running
We’ve all been there: you slump into a cab, suitably enlivened and unusually chatty, only to meet your match with an even chattier, livelier cabbie. So it went for Ray Philp when he first met Stef Shaw – once an unofficial poet laureate for a putative independent Scotland, with a trade in cloying couplets about Glasgow’s civic character. Shaw has since morphed from a harmless local eccentric to a vituperative activist against all of the familiar targets: immigration, ‘woke folk’, insufficiently celebrated heroic sniffer dogs.
For Issue 26, Philp popped into a Nile Street sports bar to profile his one-time driver, now measuring the impact of his post-pandemic pivot and the remains of his formerly benign reputation. You can read his excellent piece right here.
Pronounced ‘Aristo Guy’
Last week’s links contained a small mention of our favourite new Instagram freak, but his recent content has been too good for us to relegate him to such low billing. So let us formally introduce Andrés Alsina Arístegui and say squarely that we can’t make heads or tails of him. He appears in a few blog posts and a few stray articles which all describe him along the lines of a ‘legendary’ author, journalist, model and fashion designer and yet it is near impossible to find evidence of any of his work online. His fashion and design choices are, at best, described as ‘vivid’. But surely his magnum opus must be his Instagram. Last week we shared his goodbye to ‘25. This time around we offer up a little bit of Saturday night fever, a terrifying collection of portraits that demonstrate the man’s unique ability to look like the most beautiful and ugly person in existence and this video, where he praises his mother as a phenomenal ‘sex symbol’. Anyone with any information on him, please let us know.
Pour Things
How’s your local doing? Very possibly ‘not well’, if you visit ismypubfucked.com – a brilliant bit of data visualisation which explicates just how many pubs may well & truly be fucked by the upcoming revaluation of small business rates. Though as a publication we are steadfastly in favour of the PubCo-industrial complex paying for its crimes (through lower prices, ideally, though we’ll accept tax receipts), we are horrified, scandalised, by the prospect of independent boozers getting the hammering they’re due to receive. The Dog & Bell in Deptford, for instance – a lovely, lively and popular riverside gaff – is facing a scarcely believable uprate of 425%, and a SIX-FOLD increase in its tax bill. Pubs you love will shutter, and the spectre of the £10 pint will hover into view, unless Starmer treats us all to one last u-turn before the inevitable fall of his premiership. Go on, Keir – do it for The Pineapple.
In Case You Missed It
In a clip that seems almost AI-generated for inclusion in this newsletter, Peter Hitchens has a conniption fit while filming a reality TV programme in prison.
War reporter Robert F Worth and photographer Jack Califano are on the ground with the Minneapolis resistance for The Atlantic.
Marina Hyde and Lucy Hough share a very interesting conversation on the tragicomic case of Brooklyn Beckham.
TFcontributor Werner Herzog displays one of the arrowheads shot at him and his crew during the making of Fitzcarraldo.
Three great bits of folk music from around the world: one from Sardinia, one from Brazil and one from the Baloch people.
In perhaps the most moving Instagram post we’ve ever encountered, Geordie Greep remembers his friend and bandmate, Matt Kwasniewski-Kelvin.
What has happened to Imran Khan? Osman Samiuddin investigates how the most famous living Pakistani has been erased from public life.
And Finally
Dayton, Texas, 2001. A handheld camera moves up a suburban driveway while chilling Korean funeral music blares out of two PA speakers. ‘It’s some kind of yard sale,’ the cameraman intones. A long quote, and then, there he is, The PriceMaster.
On a raised stage draped in red and white cloth, he stands behind a microphone, the reverb turned up to 11. His loose red trousers balloon around two sharp points jutting out where his knees should be; their colour is vivid next to the cold metallic silver of his jacket. His identity is hidden behind a silver mask affixed over a red balaclava with only his lips exposed.
The madness floridly described above is a piece of performance art made by some Texan students, which has since passed into deep internet lore. And it is magnificent. As unsuspecting locals arrive at the yard sale, they are encouraged by The PriceMaster, in his vast, echoing voice, to make him an offer. All transactions are interfaced through his very normal-looking, but clearly meek, assistant (Rick Perry; not to be confused with English Football League chairman Rick Parry), who stands as a 21st-century Igor. When people do try and make a purchase, they find it is not so easy. A man offers him $17.95 for a mini TV. The minion relays. The PriceMaster thinks and then booms out ‘17… THOUSAND DOLLARS!’ He does not haggle, and when the locals begin to complain, he simply insists, ‘Everything is for sale’. The items on sale include nunchuks, a chainsaw, a crucifix, a miniature Jesus doll surrounded by roses in a sieve and other household items.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUmmxW7Ksc8
Perhaps the strangest thing is that, despite how ridiculous this is, as a piece of performance art it sort of works. Its opening quote is from philosopher Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Message, and states, ‘Environments are not passive wrappings, but are rather active processes which are invisible… Anti-environments, or counter-situations made by artists, provide means of direct attention and enable us to see and understand more clearly’.
The fake yard sale is, then, a subversion of a staple space of Texan suburbia and, 25 years later, a faintly incomprehensible marketplace with prices far in excess of what the products are worth or what people can afford feels rather prophetic. Best of all, not really knowing what to do with their recording, the students paid for it to be shown on their local cable access station, where it apparently haunted the late night slots for years.
We’ve linked the full version out of respect for the art and because it is genuinely fascinating to see the responses of some of the local Texans who take the sale very seriously. They offer up many gems, including one gentleman who rocks up, beverage in hand, and offers a maxim that Don Draper would be envious of: ‘Beer! It’s not just for breakfast anymore.’ However, for those short on time, in need of performance art and unable to locate their nearest Marina Abramović, there’s a highlights package here. We assure you, this one is worth the watch, not least because there really is no better cure for January blues than wandering around your home, office or personal yard sale yelling ‘fiiiiiiiiive…. THOUSAND DOLLARS!!!!!’
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As this, our eve of parting, turns to sands of summers gone, we shall back away doorwards while reminding you to contact support@the-fence.com for any and all mag-related queries, and editorial@the-fence.com for anything of a pitch-shaped demeanour. In 1953, while working as an army radio operator in Korea, Johnny Cash became the first American to learn of Stalin’s death. If you enjoyed this week’s newsletter, then please do share the word, write us a sonnet, or clothe us in likes and claps below. Until next week!
All the best,
TF