Dear Readers,
Good afternoon and welcome back to Off The Fence, a newsletter that is considering a fringe. We come to you today from the sixth day of rain in a row ,which may sound quite dreary but in fact it is the perfect weather for settling down with the much-feted latest issue of the UK’s only magazine. But we hardly need to tell you this as you are clearly already doing so, as we are fielding competition entries from all over the shop – from preemptively enjoying a celebratory tipple, to sizing up to fellow rags and enjoying the fair skies of Bournemouth. Issue 29 has also been spotted appropriately surrounded by glitz and glamour and in two dentist waiting rooms as well as artfully hung on along a washing line.
Keep sending your best photos through to editorial@the-fence.com or tag us on social media and you might win that special prize.
Elsewhere, Selvi May Akyildiz praises our journalism, and our parties; David Wingrave pumps our investigation into Owen Oyston and Jonathan Nunn shouts out James Ramsden’s excellent piece on his career as a restauranteur.
It’s all really going on at the moment, so do subscribe for the year at the link below and join in the fun.
In the upcoming Issue 30, Phoebe Philo are returning as an advertising partner alongside a couple of other brands. If you would like to join them, then please email the editor at cb@the-fence.com for a media pack, and we can create a beautiful, bespoke advert together, and you might have your placement celebrated like so.
Right let’s get it going, we’re celebrating a very special evening in particular.
Stasi Costume Party
It is Halloween this weekend, and no doubt many of you might be beholden to mincing around in a sheet or highly flammable wig on Saturday in deference to the mania of the heavily commercialised holiday. We have decided to mark it by bringing your attention to a menacing yet undeniably funny archive of dress-up in the form of a collection of Stasi files unearthed by Berlin-based artist Simor Menner in 2011.
In a rare photographic insight into the East German secret police – escaping being shredded or incinerated after the regime collapse – Mener found photos taken of people’s rooms pre-searching (to ensure they could put everything back in the same place), informational pictures illustrating how to arrest offenders (in which they made dissidents re-enact their own arrests for the camera), as well as agents in barber chairs being fitted with wigs and facial hair to complete their disguises. Among them there is a characteristically sterile collection of snaps from a high-ranking Stasi officer’s birthday party where the theme was to dress up as official demographic groups under Stasi surveillance.
Invitees came as athletes, dancers, academics, and peace activists, as well as going all-out in mitres and vestments as members of the clergy – a group apparently at the top of watch lists. The costumes are actually quite well executed, which is surprising considering the rest of the archive houses training photos that show comically inept ‘disguises’ agents were advised to wear for remaining incognito. These various get-ups in fact seem to hit every stereotype of spy-wear in the cultural lexicon, with dark glasses, belted overcoats, fur hats and noir-esque upturned collars – conspicuous caricatures just shy of lit pipes and tweed deerstalkers. We’re really not exaggerating.
Deadmin
In the 90s and noughties Oliver Peyton was an infamously enterprising restaurateur, proprietor of Coast, Mash and the exuberantly opulent dining room of the Atlantic Bar & Grill. Of late, however, he has moved into a different kind of trade. In our latest issue Alex Bilmes talks to the man behind Exit Here – a funeral director who has 179 five-star Google reviews and a pleasingly idiosyncratic approach to the business of death.
Chiz, Chiz
‘this is me e.g. nigel molesworth, the curse of st custards, the GOAT of 3B etc. etc. Here are my grate thorts about skool in the year 2026 were we are fed brain rot and Ls. I nigel molesworth struggel thru, keeping my aura intact.’
One of the hit pieces of the issue is now up and ready to be read online – the return of none other than Nigel Molesworth. The curse of St Custards returned from his slumber to terrorise the ‘Etc.’ pages of Issue 29 and his sage wisdom for all Gen Z schoolchildren is truly vital information. People have been going genuinely barmy for this one, so much so that modernised Molesworth content seems to be two a penny hem hem, chiz, chiz. Still, we’re all clinging to the backs of Willians and Searle on this one, so we shan’t grumble.
Bricks and Mortar
Shops, shops, shops. We love shops. We love anyone doing something risky and different in this economy (well, within reason). So it’s a big shout-out to two new stockists, the first is Harry’s Newsagents in W2, around the back of the revamped Whiteley’s, and we’re delighted to be stocked at The Waves in Hastings. Do support them if you’re in the wider Kent area and if you’d like to stock The Fence please email Tom Stocker (yes, really) at tom.stocker@mms.london.co.uk and he will attend to you there.
Nights to Remember
Issue 30 is being flatplanned this week and it really is a belter and we will be droning on about it at great length in the weeks to come. If you’d like to be a part of it, then all you need to do is tell about your most memorable New Year’s Eve, it can either be a horror show or a golden evening. You can send through entries to editorial@the-fence.com or post them on Twitter here on its gentler cousin, Bluesky. The best entries will be printed in the upcoming issue and we are looking forward to hearing from you.
Back Issues Are Back, Alright
We have been selling magazines at the print mecca that is MagCulture since TF’s inception. We think we might even be the best-selling quarterly magazine there? Anyway we are now selling back issues there, which really is good news for the completists among you as we have slipped a handful of the legendary (and sold-out) Issue 18 their way. There are some other archived jewels too.
Under the Influence
As many of yo know, Spy magazine is our great influence, and not just in general editorial tone, we have just straight-up pilfered their archive over the years – like with our Nobelists inquiry, this enjoyably controversial graph concerning the notion of ‘Acceptable Camp’ and, to be honest, the entire concept of ‘Secret Chef’.
Now you can see Spy on the screen as opposed to regurgitated in our jokes section, as the old band have got back together on Substack, where they are posting articles daily to mark their 40th anniversary. It’s wonderful stuff.
There Were So Many Voters… Brazilians of Them!
We are entering a period of intense elections: Israel is choosing whether to oust Netanyahu, the Serbs just kicked out Vučić and soon the Americans will do their strange dance of kicking the president they elected at the midterms. But it’s hard to see any being more surprising than the shock return of Lula for a fourth term. Why? Because Lula came second in the first round of the election, an honour that has always meant an equivalent finish in the run-off. And also because South American elections have been noted for having a pendulum motion of late, and now seemed to be a time for swinging right – Bolivia, Honduras, Costa Rica and Peru all went that way, and people expected the same for Brazil.
So how did the old man buck the trend? Pollsters are pointing to a 3 million increase of voter turnout in the second round, partly because Brazil’s left-wing golden oldies came out for him, but also because of an 11 million-strong WhatApp group, a truly terrifying phenomenon to all of us sick of a mere double-digit workplace one.
We also have to give a huge amount of credit to whoever came up with Brazil’s presidential debate format. Gone are the dull podiums and heavy interruptions of moderators – in Brazil it seems they are mostly given free reign to bounce off each other and both prowl around the stage, competing for close-ups and looking not unlike a dressed-up grime cypher.
It was in these one-on-ones that the hard-nosed old man did seem to best Flávio – known as the weaker (or vaccinated) Bolsonaro – including a deliciously teed-up insult in the clip below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AP5bZFn-an0
Shear, Shear
‘Wool left on and an accumulation of small cuts will be DQ’d. The judges’ decision will be final.’
If you haven’t already guessed, this is one of the rules of North Yorkshire’s annual sheep shearing competition – a boozy gathering of young farmers putting their flock=wielding to the test against the clock. The event has grown so rapidly over the last few years, it has recently been moved to accommodate the sprawl – Frank Read reports on this year’s iteration from the clubhouse of Harome cricket field.
In Case You Missed It
Can we all still enjoy The History Boys?
A fascinating interview with the legendary General Graeme Lamb.
Millennial fathers are prepping for armageddon.
New developments in the Zac Brettler case.
And Finally
We were pummelled by the first storm of the season this weekend as Storm Boeleo ripped through powerlines and knocked down trees up and down the country. We can be thankful, at least, that we were somewhat prepared as the Met Office warned last week that said storm on the horizon – a luxury that was not afforded before one of Britain’s largest storms in 1987, which all of you wrinklies will no doubt remember.
For those of you unfamiliar with the story: it was the greatest meteorological blunder to grace the BBC News, Michael Fish made a throwaway aside during the evening broadcast that would go on to define his career and change weather forecasting forever. Finishing up his evening report, Fish recounted, ‘Earlier on today a lady rang the BBC and said she heard that there was a hurricane on the way. Well, don’t worry if you’re watching, there isn’t’. Within a few hours, the Great Storm of 1987 hit, the worst in nearly 300 years.
Hurricane-force winds caused £1 billion in damage, with a channel ferry driven ashore on a beach east of Folkstone, 15 million trees lost, a ship capsized in Dover and entire swathes of London blacked out for the first time since 1945. Fish’s gaffe has been knocking around the highlight reel annals of British broadcasting ever since, even featuring in London’s 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony, and there are many, many edits of the incident to browse online – we chose one with a decidedly pointed soundtrack.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKPQLl5rupg
And so that is it for today, how will you survive the week without us? Well, luckily ,subscribers to Capital Letter don’t have to – we’ll see you on Thursday – and for those not yet subscribed, you can change that here. As ever we sit by the phone at support@the-fence.com for any mag-related angst and editorial@the-fence.com for everything else (within reason now). The world’s oldest cat, Creme Puff, lived to 38 years and three days old, thriving on a diet of broccoli, turkey bacon, coffee and red wine.
All the best,
TF