Dear Readers,
Good afternoon, and welcome to Off The Fence, a newsletter that knows no bounds. We’ve got a tight little edition for you today, as we’re putting together our summer edition. It’s being sent to design next week for those of you who care for such information. In the meantime, our current offering continues to delight, and The Fence has just received a broadside of praise from Marina Hyde on her podcast with Richard Osman. You should watch it here.
Issue 23 has been snapped around and about, alongside a martini, on top of Mount Patrokrator in Corfu, on the Donegal coast, at the Neasden Temple, with a particularly beautiful dog, among an array of bric-a-brac, and with a sleeping short-hair cat. What a winning ensemble.
Keep these photos coming, and you can win that sparkling and delicious prize. Issue 23 will be unavailable for purchase all too soon – it’s our best-selling edition yet, and you should subscribe today so you never miss another copy. At just £29.99 for the year, it’s bafflingly good value.
Our new ‘vertical’, Capital Letter, is proving a hit, with FT food and drink supremo, Harriet Fitch Little, writing, ‘This is something I’ve wanted for ages: actual written-by-humans recommendations for theatre, art, curious things around London that are worth your time.’
The latest outing takes in the cuisine of Victor Garvey, the Tower of London, the legacy of Ken Kiff and has some stern words for a new restaurant in Shoreditch and a certain Guardian critic. You can read it here.
To business, and to the Anglo-American relationship(s).
Greenwich and Gansevoort
Congratulations to Ed Cumming, our free lunch supremo, who has managed to irk Keith McNally spectacularly, with the crotchety restauranter blasting Ed’s ‘poorly written and woefully inaccurate article’ in an Instagram post.
Ed’s interview reveals the big scoop of McNally’s memoir, namely that at the age of 18, the young actor had an affair with the playwright, Alan Bennett, which really shouldn’t come as too much of a shock, especially if you read the playwright’s diaries closely enough.
While Keith McNally may have had his fair share of free meals, Ed is closing in on him fast – you can read his first column here.
I Need Some Help
We’re tickled by the news that Bloomsbury acolyte and erstwhile Fendi supremo, Kim Jones, maintained no less than three personal assistants in his former job. Double-dropping PAs seems par for the course if you’re running a FTSE100 company, but three fully-grown humans at your constant beck and call is magnificently outré. Do you know – or have you heard of anyone – who maintains a Downton Abbey-style set-up in the office? Any tips to editorial@the-fence.com.
Five-Star Features
Issue 24 is full, and Issue 25 is rounding up nicely, but we’re always on the lookout for marmalade-droppers, for stonking narratives that any editor would want to publish. Do have a read of our pitch guide here and please send through your top-drawer material to editorial@the-fence.com. It goes without saying that first-time writers are especially welcome – Peter Carlyon, who wrote the cover story for Issue 23, had never written for a print publication before.
In Search of Almas Ali
Sarah Haque wrote one of our most popular pieces ever, a crushingly acute account of the horrors of attending an all-girls school, and has now written a truly fantastic article for the New York Reviewof Booksabout her grandfather, an early activist for Bangladesh who was killed by the independence movement he helped found.
Invisible Children
Georgia Brown’s outstanding feature from Issue 23 has been garlanded by the good burghers of Longreads.com, and if you haven’t read it yet, you can do now.
Georgia’s brother, father and grandfather were all locked up in borstals, and these institutions continue today in the guise of ‘Young Offenders Institutes’.
Children Heard and Seen is a charity looking to support children whose parents are in prison. They have made a short documentary which we commend to you all here.
Are You Longing to Be Amused, Moved and Gripped?
If you feel let down by dumbed-down, earnest newspapers and magazines, your spirits will rocket with The Oldie – please come and join thousands of like-minded readers.
The Oldie is a haven for Britain’s greatest writers, from Craig Brown to Prue Leith and A.N. Wilson; from Gyles Brandreth to Giles Wood and Mary Killen, the funniest couple on TV.
‘I think The Oldie these days is simply the best magazine there is – seriously, the best’ – Stephen Fry
‘The Oldie is an incredible magazine – perhaps the best magazine in the world’ –Graydon Carter
Click here to get The Oldie for £1 an issue
Hold the Phone for Sir Martin Sorrell
If you’d like to advertise with us, and reach 27,000 readers, then please do have a read of our rate card. We are also open to ad swaps, like the one above. As we mentioned in the previous newsletter, these are exciting times for us, and if you’d like to help us grow, then please do email the editor at cb@the-fence.com. We’re particularly interested in hearing from people who would like to stock the magazine.
Robson’s Choice
Breakout social media star, Leo Robson, has a novel out with the quite fantastic title, The Boys. There is a long excerpt of some 5,500 words in the current issue, with some lovely illustrations from Paul Cox. But we have a shorter passage for you here, which has just been published on our website.
You should, of course, buy Leo’s book, which is out in all stores from Thursday, and is available for purchase here.
In Case You Missed It
Lena Dunham has left New York.
Lady Pamela Hicks enjoys the company of a tarantula on the occasion of her 96th birthday.
Andrew O’Hagan revels in Whitney Houston’s hologram.
Video of the year so far: Big Boi’s owls.
And Finally
For anyone who exerted themselves a little too hard over the Bank Holiday and needs something soothing, we present the Straight Line Mission series. Made by Tom Davies (aka GeoWizard), it involves him trying to cross countries in entirely straight lines, without deviating more than 25 metres.
This produces excellent armchair viewing as you watch Tom clamber over hedgerows, battle through dense pine forests, and leg it away from farmers on their quadbikes. So far, he’s had a go at Scotland, Wales, England, and Norway, the latter getting particularly exciting when he rather underestimates the power of a peat bog, and walks directly into it.
Like any good series it is also incredibly bingeable, with a whole host of spinoff series he’s put together, including ‘How Not To Travel’ where he and his friend ‘Welsh Greg’ travel across multiple countries (or states in the US version) without a tent, and with a self-imposed ban on paying for any transport or accommodation.
All of this is backed by a charming 8-bit soundtrack composed by Tom himself. Altogether, it goes excellently with a comfy chair, a good cup of tea, and a couple of paracetamol, should you need them.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO0XbbL_gBE
That’s that for this week, and we’ll be back with another newsletter on Tuesday, how the time flies! Remember to keep sending those photos of the magazine through, and if you enjoyed today’s outing, do buy a magazine or a tote bag or a map from the webstore. Did you know that Australia is wider than the moon? Speak soon.
All the best,
TF