Dear Readers,
Good morning, and welcome to Off The Fence – we’re here, and so is Issue 19: the best, by far. It’s time to bang the drum for the very best issue we’ve put together, fresh off the back of our Coming of Age edition at the end of last year with a magazine that really is the purest distillation of what we’re all about.
We lead with our barnstorming cover story, unpicking the greatest scandal to hit the Church of England this millennium (readable here). We have one of the most talked-about novelists of 2024, Megan Nolan, writing beautifully about her final days in London, and first as a native New Yorker. Sailing right alongside are Clive Martin, who we sent to report from a gangster’s wake in Whitechapel; Ian Trueger, writing about his experiences in the kitchen brigade at St. JOHN; and the Sunday Times’ Charlotte Ivers, who tried for a day to live, and drink, like Tom Baker in his prime.
Across the magazine, we have so much more: Sachin Kureishi writing about his father Hanif’s rehabilitation; a rigorous survey of London’s professional parties & how shit they all are; horoscopes, stupid quizzes, confessionals and tall tales. We’re coming into 2024 singing and swinging with Issue 19 – get your copy without delay at the shop link below.
And of course, if you’d rather avoid the wait next time around, a year’s print subscription remains at the astonishingly, sickeningly low price of £29.99 for the year. Sign up today, and get your next copy before it hits the newsstands.
The whole thing has been beautifully designed by Studio Mathias Clottu, and we’ve got illustrations by Paul Cox, Natalya Lobanova, Miki Lowe and Matthieu Cossé, who also did the brilliant cover.
It’s a pleasure to introduce some new blood to this issue – Tommy Gilhooly, Yoel Noorali and Ella Benson Easton.
Existing subscriber copies will be arriving tomorrow and Thursday, and we look forward to seeing lots of photos of the magazine ‘out in the wild’.
Onto the meat of matters. Strutting out of the home tunnel this week, we’ve got some meditations on ciggies, an Albarn-sized tantrum at Coachella, and the most excruciating clip we’ve ever featured in this newsletter. But first, we wave goodbye to a sports hero, comedian and murderer.
The Big White Ford Bronco In The Sky
Almost 30 years exactly since doing those murders that he said he didn’t do, OJ Simpson, star of Hertz commercials, author of (If) I Did It and father of five children not including Khloe Kardashian, died on Wednesday, aged 76. He went out the way he lived – lying about the fact he was dying. In the aftermath of his passing this weekend we collectively relived some of his most crass moments, from pretending to stab Ruby Wax with a banana right after once again claiming he did not do those murders that he did, or the time he was beaten in a race by former leader of the Lib Dems, Menzies Campbell. Wax told a tv show on Friday that OJ later called her up on 1 April and said: ‘It’s OJ, I did it! April Fools!’ Unlike OJ, Ming Campbell is still alive.
Zyn City
As the first reading of the government’s tobacco and vapes bill passes through Parliament today, a nation holds its breath, then feels a strange tight pain just below the oesophagus before coughing a few times, and wondering how long it takes for chest damage to heal itself. If Rishi Sunak has his way, every child born after 2009 will soon be denied legal access to inhalable nicotine – we’ve heard a little tidbit of gossip about the PM’s animus being driven by his own teenage daughter’s predilection for a puff of Lost Mary.
One can only speculate how uncool this may render Generation Alpha, but then again, they think we’re losers anyway, and we’re only going to hate each other more as time passes, so maybe it’s great if we get to keep the Marlboros to ourselves. Regardless, if you want to read an ode to childhood smoking that will have you all wistful for the first toxic thwack to ever hit your virgin lungs, the imperious Sophie Elmhirst has a brilliant little essay on the topic in Issue 19. No web-links this time, buy your copy now.
Modern Life Is Rubbish
The Gregorian calendar’s second worst festival – the worst is of course Burning Man – took place last weekend. Coachella, a desert full of influencers wearing flammable Shein and hawking their brand deals, has never been exactly ground zero for the kind of debauchery you see at European festivals. There are only certain places you can drink, you have to travel off-site for accommodation and American crowds are famously lacklustre compared to their UK counterparts. We all know this. Everyone knows this except for dad-rockers Blur, who were affronted by the lukewarm reception to their 30 year old set during their bafflingly prominent slot on Coachella’s headline stage this Saturday.
Damon Albarn grew increasingly irate with the crowd who did not know their songs, could not sing along, and – let's be honest – were probably only holding their space by the main stage for headliner Tyler, The Creator. ‘I need your participation please’, said Albarn OBE, the 56-year-old counter-cultural icon. When the participation didn’t come, he upped the ante. ‘You can do a bit better than that,’ Albarn told 60,000 silent teenagers, flanked by Chipping Norton’s hardest guitarist-cum-cheese farmer, Graham Coxon, and rock & roll drummer-cum-former Labour candidate, Dave Rowntree.
Finally he lost it and said in a huff that Coachella would ‘never see them again’ so they ‘may as well fucking sing it’. Cans of White Claw at the festival cost $16.
Charing, Cross? I Was Absolutely Furious
As the London mayoral elections loom (no, us neither), our editor-at-large presents a piece from the technical heart of the British capital. Not City Hall or the Square Mile but the distinctly unglamorous part of town littered with Little Frankies – the even less appealing offshoot of Frankie & Benny’s, Gordon’s Wine Bar and lots of actual litter: Charing Cross. It’s got cottaging, pigeons and glue-huffing gnomes. If you think you know London, read on.
In Case You Missed It
Rosa Lyster tackles the roots of creative non-fiction for Literary Review.
Ned Donovan on the turn-of-the-century, proto-fascist free state which ran on cocaine and yoga (presaging California by a full hundred years).
Serena Smith wonders: why don’t rich people eat any more?
Justin Davidson chimes in with the article about Tokyo’s public toilets you didn’t know you needed.
Dear Beloved – LA Review of Books’ Melina Moe collates the rejection letters Toni Morrison wrote to budding authors during her 16 years as an editor for Random House.
And Finally
Every so often a video comes along which, even after cynicism-inducing years in the content mines, has the power to shock the office. Inevitably the one that did so contained a long term object of our fascination: the man whose heroin is publicity, Gyles Brandreth. It also features walking Partridge inspiration Nick Owen, author of the autobiography In the Time of Nick, and unrepentant sex criminal, Gary Glitter.
There are so many parts of this video which will make your skin crawl that it is almost impossible to pinpoint the part where it all goes wrong, BUT: The Fence leaves you with this question. Does Brandreth always carry around those glasses in the hope that someone spoonerises the name of a paedophile? Watch and find out, if you dare, and let us know if you make it to the end.
There we are. All done. We hope you’ve found this edition as thrilling as all the others, if not more so. As always, if you need us for anything, email support@the-fence.com, and if you have anything for us, anything at all, editorial@the-fence.com is the address to send it to. See you next Tuesday.
All the best,
TF