Dear Readers,
Good afternoon and welcome back to Off The Fence, a newsletter with notions. Several of them. We are firmly in lying-down season and the photos are flying in. Issue 28 doing the rounds of summer holidays in this most wonderful time of year. Here it is as it sips on a cold beverage in Spain, takes a tour of the White House, makes a stop in Greece, takes a sunny train ride and is tipped off as cool by an anonymous savant. It then took the time to once again dominate the scenery of the Lake District and takes in the loneliest hostel in the country.
As we sally forth into August, let’s keep the mood high with a great deal: everyone who buys a print subscription today will get Issue 25, 26 and 27 alongside the current issue – eight magazines for the price of four. But this will only be for the first 15 people who sign up, so get in while the iron is hot.
Speaking of heat, do remember that all our best takes on summer in London are contained in the bi-weekly and elegant package of Capital Letter. Last week’s dispatch was especially varied: Ridley Road, Limehouse, Mayfair and Kempton. Sign up for obvious reasons.
It’s wonderful to see everyone enjoying Issue 28, but we are looking forward to 29 – always one step ahead around here – and specifically to Fencepost. We’re asking you: what are your funniest first date stories? The best entries will be featured in the next issue, and please remember: funny stories only. Finally, as you must surely know by now, we also run a photographic competition for our sins. Drop us your entry at editorial@the-fence.com for a chance to win a bottle of something glamorous and a prime spot in the newsletter. But let’s move onto the reason we are all here.
Jaffa Cakes Are Biscuits
There’s been a lot in the media lately about one Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor once hailed for being the university’s youngest black professor and one of its few autistic ones, is now under fire for accusations of plagiarism and tall tales. We particularly enjoy his (not officially falsified) double claim to have run both 30 marathons in 35 days and 600 miles in six in order to raise an ever-shifting sum of money for charity. Perhaps best of all was Arday’s response to the Guardian’s querying of these claims: ‘To be honest with you, I thought you’d just believe me… why would I lie?’
But as good as it, we prefer the stories propounded by one Sacha Jafri, the subject of 28’s mammoth feature ‘Impossibility is a Myth’ because for grandeur they are hard to match. Jafri is a man who has claimed his Eton headmaster took a Picasso of his wall to hang up one of his teenage works; that his clients include Obama, Bills both Gates and Clinton, DiCaprio, Beckham and Clooney; that he travelled to Sudan with the last of these to make a film called Sand and Sorrow. The last of these tales is funniest – Jafri once claimed that flying over the Sudanese desert he remarked to the star, ‘Wow, the sand is really red here’, before George turned to him, background music presumably swelling, and said ‘No, Sacha, that’s blood’.
The full story behind these tall tales and the game of international con-man-ship they connect to are still only readable in print. Get moving now.
Pitch Me Till’ I’m Gone
The magazine world is a perverse one because he we are, mid-fifth heatwave of the summer asking for your winteriest pitches… but so it goes. We are on the hunt for pieces for Issue 30, the big three oh. If you have a great story, something insidery, something no one else is talking about, do please send it our way on editorial@the-fence.com.
But! Before you do anything and start pitching us a piece of armchair analysed psycho-geography based on an academic’s thesis set in Papua New Guinea, do please have a read of the pitch guide. It will save us all time and effort.
We look forward to our inbox ringing off the hook.
When the Going was Good
This week, an insider from Vice has gone on the record about the fall of what was once the coolest outlet around. We ran a similar story about a similar sort of place in Issue 4: ‘When I started there, my publication was a darling of new media. In the open-plan office, beer was plentiful. Most people did not start work before 10:30 AM. Everyone had shagged; everyone did drugs with each other. You could progress from intern to managing editor in a few years, if you slept with the right person, and liked cocaine.’ It is one of dozens of insider pieces we’ve done, including on sex work, filmmaking, modelling and jury participating.
One for Sorrow
James Ramsden’s tour of restaurant ghosts from the current issue is now online. James tracks back through the recesses of past ventures throughout the capital: setting up Pidgin in Hackney, before traversing the borders of central London with both Magpie and Daka Daka. James does a brilliant stock take of the better and worse moments of setting and keeping alive a series of much-loved and much-missed restaurants: ‘Magpie wasn’t bad, it just wasn’t good enough. It’s especially true now, but even ten years ago, you couldn’t afford to get off to anything but a racing start in central London. When you’re raiding your personal savings to make payroll at the end of the first month, something has gone terribly wrong.’
An Evening to Remember
Now for a message from our friends at Valemark – if you’d like to take an advert with us and reach more than 63,000 eyeballs then drop an email to the editor at cb@the-fence.com to discuss rates.
Here’s the truth: London is full of interesting people you’ll never ever meet. How do you end up at dinner with six strangers who are actually worth the evening? Valemark’s Tables is built for you: curious, good company, fond of a wide-ranging conversation. Every guest is vetted by our team, and each table is seated with people seeking the same thing you are. It’s next Thursday and the Thursdays after. Apply for a seat here.
Missed a spot
There’s a video doing the rounds of Nana Patole, the Indian politician and a member of the Indian National Congress Party, having his feet washed by senior members of congress.
Cormac Kehoe Runs the Government
We were interested to see that Andy Burnham has announced a crackdown on ‘dodgy businesses’ on high streets though a little less pleased that he only mentioned betting and vape shops. As anyone worth their body’s salt – meaning everyone who has read our Cormac’s latest incredible investigation in Issue 28 – knows, the real shiftiness is to be found in the souvenir stores, especially anything ‘Harry Potter’ branded. It seems Burnham has taken the hint, but not taken it far enough
These unofficial tat stores are a nightmare and have been used as a fascinating channel for moving money for some time now. It’s unclear how Burnham hitting his ‘give more power to local authorities’ button again will shake things up, but if it does we hope the remit widens. With the recent news that potter fans managed to move an entire infrastructure project to protect the ‘grave’ of a fictional (and annoying) CG character, it has become clear that their power needs to be curbed. We hope the PM will take this into account, or at least begin spreading the rumour that Dobby’s final wish was the rapid completion of HS2 at no extra cost. It’s what he would have wanted…
In Case You Missed It
Rodney Dangerfield’s short lived rap career.
Jude Bellingham’s grandfather on mastermind.
And Finally
We must thank a reader from Canada for putting us on to this marvellous five-minute gem, which you can watch on the country’s fantastic National Film Board player. This might be a first outing for the CNFB – so, hat’s off to our man in Toronto for the tip! And, thank God for a new resource to dredge through for OTF. Onto the show.
Larry Bauman’s 1985 documentary, produced as part of a series titled ‘Vignettes that Move’, follows the moving of a Saskatchewan grain elevator across a snow-covered prairie. It is nine storeys and 200 tonnes, and the venture basically spells an immoveable feast. In short, they are trying to get it from Greenstreet to Marshall, both of which to mystified English eyes at least, look totally identical. Cue a gargantuan effort for apparently no major outcome. But the result is at once very beautiful and very funny. Teetering on the back of an open truck, the structure is comically outsized, and a wonderful testament to strange human invention and skill. It is so enormous that at one point, the nose of the truck tips back beneath the weight of the elevator. Nonetheless, they persevere, and the job gets done. The elevator is moved, bouncing up and over the snowy side, proudly pulled towards its new home. The word ‘PIONEER’ is fittingly emblazoned on its facade. It is oddly moving. Incidentally, what is a grain elevator? Do we have that here?
The film has a slight James Benning vibe, and definitely a Man Alive touch, and so a fitting and proper offering to the And Finally altar. There are other vignettes on the Arctic sea creatures, train robbers, schooners and steam organs. It is not just a treasure trove, but a veritable mine.
https://www.nfb.ca/film/canada_vignettes_move/
It is with the sparkling possibility of a burgeoning short-form video gold mine that we shut shop on the latest run of Off the Fence. If you are still wanting, why not sign up to our sister series, Capital Letter?
Do remember that there are 15 spots for a multi-bag TF subscription, so do move quickly to the shop page here. In any case, keep us in the loop with your high days and holidays at editorial@the-fence.com, and don’t stray too far from home between now and the next newsletter mailout. Or do, but make sure to snap a photo of the issue on your travels. There are more species of beetles than any other animal: 400,000 of them.
All the best,
TF