Dear Readers,
Good afternoon, and welcome to Off The Fence, a newsletter, not a love letter. Issue 27 is currently being laid out on a flatplan, and it really is looking very special indeed.
Issue 26, however, is still very much knocking around, and was even spotted in Antarctica this week, would you believe it – the magazine has now been snapped on all seven continents, which is something of a landmark. Remember to keep sending in the photos to editorial@the-fence.com
Now we’ve got ten tokens giving you 20 per cent off a year’s subscription, which applies to print, digital, or both – and to gift subscriptions too. Just enter code MARCH20 at checkout, but remember, we’ve only printed off ten of these sweet little treats off.
Now, today, we’ve got the dark side of ‘pubfluencers’, underpaid interns and a fresh nugget from the coalface of the Epstein files.
From Hollywood to Hollywood
Irish people, unlike their transatlantic counterparts, have been poorly represented in the Epstein files. One name that does feature (360 times) is that of Bangor man Paul Tweed, one of Hollywood’s foremost libel lawyers (Hi Paul!) who has advised high-profile celebrities and lovable social media rogues ranging from Britney Spears to Gerry Adams.
In the wake of Jeffrey Epstein’s release from Palm Beach County Stockade in 2009, Tweed was one of those he enlisted in the campaign to rehabilitate his image. The US Justice Department’s disclosures reveal how Tweed helped Jeff to pressurise publications including the Telegraph and Tatler, to remove their annoying and repetitive use of the word ‘paedophile’ from their copy. One letter from Johnsons LLP in which Tweed was a partner, argues that, ‘the procurement of a seventeen and a half year old girl for prostitution… cannot be classified as “paedophilia”’. An interesting distinction.
In one of his introductory emails to Epstein, Tweed cites his ‘generally good relationship’ with the Legal Managers of The Times and The Guardian, and notes that he might be able to ‘persuade one or both of them to publish a clarification, which we could in turn use as leverage in relation to the other publications’. Tweed also advised Epstein on his efforts to obtain an apology from Sarah Ferguson – then Duchess of York – who had referenced the paedophile’s ‘paedophilia’ in an Evening Standard interview.
Indeed, a lot of the correspondence between Tweed and Epstein relate to their proposal for the Duchess to publicly apologise for her use of ‘the p word’. A few draft apologies suggested she describe him instead as ‘a kind and very generous man’ and ask that she mention how he ‘is focusing his life on helping others’. ‘We should all do the same’, the drafts moralise.
Ferguson’s lawyers apparently demurred at these alternatives, so Tweed promptly informed them that if they did not agree to the ‘correction’ he would ‘likely to be put in a position… where I will have to undermine the credibility of those comments by pointing out that your client and her daughters were among the first to enjoy my client’s hospitality upon his release from prison and continued to do so until very recently.’ Ferguson’s lawyers argue that the tenor of Tweed’s demands ‘could be construed as attempted blackmail.’
The correspondence reveals the rabid paranoia that governed Epstein in this period, in one message, he tells Tweed he is ‘certain’ the News of the World was hacking his phone, asking the lawyer to make a request to Scotland Yard. Tweed responds by telling him that he had spoken to his ‘contact in the MET’ to try and work out if there was any truth to the billionaire’s fears.
Another piece of invaluable legal advice imparted to Epstein was a recommendation that he should write an op-ed comparing himself to former Italian Prime Minister, and Lazy Town character lookalike, Silvio Berlusconi, who had successfully weathered an attempted cancellation after being caught soliciting sex from an underage girl in 2013.
For these indispensable morsels, Epstein was charged tens of thousands of dollars. The files show how Tweed’s entreaties to be paid, however, repeatedly fell on deaf ears. At one point, Tweed tells him, ‘Obviously I value you as very much a blue chip client and I want to ensure that you are happy not only with my advice, but also that you are being charged for it’ before offering to ‘write off 50% of the bill total in return for payment of the balance’. There’s nothing worse than someone who doesn’t pay their bills on time, is there?
Halton Moreish
In September 2010, Jimi Heseldon fell to his death reversing one of his own company’s segways off a cliff. He was trying to make way for a dog walker in a final act of courtesy. It was a sudden and sad end for an incredible man who made his wealth by redeveloping a medieval siege defence known as a Gabion or Leonardo basket.
Using redundancy pay he received after the closure of the local mine where he worked, he developed his business eventually selling them to the US army, where they proved just as effective as they had ever been. Thus Jimi became known as a man made rich by ‘the twin evils of Arthur Scargill and Osama bin Laden’.
But what made the man special was what he did with that money. You can read about that now, as the piece has gone up on our website.
18-00-02 Was My Number
While London’s other creative industries have largely been defanged, there is still a fair amount of ‘difficult’ behaviour in the food world. However, the restaurateurs and their retinue have nothing on the fashion mavens, who still carry on as if it were 1996, as Clive Martin reported, at length, in Issue 15. When it comes to staggering breaches of employment law from up-and-coming ‘names’, we would like to say that we are, unfortunately, unshockable, but this nugget of info really did rock our world.
A well-established London designer recently had an intern working full-time who wasn’t paid for nine months. And when they were, finally, remunerated for their efforts, payment came from a Coutts business account.
Lock-In Privileges
In today’s Guardian, Tomé Morrisey-Swan speaks to the ‘pubfluencers’ who are encouraging Gen-Z drinkers to discover the lush carpeted joys of the proper boozer. Among others, he talks to our own correspondent, Jimmy McIntosh, but, for some reason, he doesn’t find the time to talk to Twitter user, ‘Chelsea Dan’, a 49-year-old bike courier-slash-pubfluencer. Unlike the Instagram-first activists, Chelsea Dan (twitter bio: ‘Hail Odin’) does not have progressive politics.
Regrettably, Chelsea Dan is one of the most fascinating English users of Musk’s platform, deeply knowledgeable – if consistently direct – about aspects of London’s recent working-class history, and bringing with him a cast of characters who regularly feature on his feed (‘Wonky’, ‘The Duck’ and so on). In a perfect example of the horseshoe theory in action, you can spot him at many of the boozers increasingly frequented by the trendy young things, much to his increasing ire. Turning an honest boozer into a ‘hipster gaff’? Jail sentence, for sure.
In Case You Missed It
Jane Ruffino marks the end of the underwater cable that supplied the internet.
The biggest thing to come out of Utrecht since Jurriën Timber: the fish doorbell, is back. See a fish? Ring the doorbell, of course.
Jackson Lears on the interesting life of Zbigniew Brzezinski (say that ten times fast.)
We’ve never watched The Great Pottery Throw Down, but is this Keith bloke okay?
Strange coding experiments from a middle-aged Japanese man.
Brilliant work from Bellingcat into the ‘TikTok stars’ of the Sudan war.
AI moves on to dizzying new heights.
And Finally
The lamentable omnipresence of adverts in our lives is often lamented. And yet, we can’t help but feel that within this, there should be some respect for standards. Because the adverts today drone at us with slogans and visuals that are so rubbish, you do wonder what the point is. Everything about them is bland, crass or annoying, with each punchy, comma-separated tagline and hacked-up ‘visual identity’ so devoid of humanity that you can almost feel the sapping tendrils of every ‘idea summit’, the cloying papier-mâché cling of every pointless layer of bureaucracy.
There are so many offenders here, but briefly: Ricky Gervais’ entirely fake rage-bait ads, Bitpanda’s collaboration with Arsenal and the (apparently) upcoming ‘savvy squirrel’ whose AI-generated face will encourage us to save all the money we’re earning in this wonderful economic climate.
This was not always so. And so we thought we’d pay a truncated but heartfelt service to a wonderful collection of ads that programmed our subconsciousness with a degree of aesthetic quality or charming, rough-around-the-edges authenticity.
The kings of the former in the 90s were arguably Murphy’s, who attempted to sling us their stout with some excellent Japanese-inspired ads, one in the style of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samuraiand another in an incredibly detailed cyberpunk anime short called Last Orders that must have taken some serious inkspilling to realise. Indeed, importing Japanese stylings for western products is apparently a perfectly reversible formula. See two Japanese coffee ads from Tommy Lee Jones and the cast of Twin Peaks. And, of course, Murphy’s more successful counterparts in stout making also have the legendary surfer ad.
The latter category has too many brilliant examples to choose from, especially from US local networks. Quite simply, local business people make exceptional advertising content. We buy golf? Of course you do! Free Jewish magic? Where do I sign up?
Perhaps the best of this form actually comes in a well-known – amongst internet lore collectors – spoof of them. We’re talking, of course, about the advertising wing of Toby Jones’ (not that one) commercial empire. Here are his adverts for his ‘Good Ass BBQ & Foot Massage’ and his ‘Big Ass Truck Rental & Storage’. Sadly, neither are real businesses, but the ads are so good, we almost forgive him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0gb9v4LI4o
If, however, there was one piece of advertising we would hold above all others, we know our choice. In 2003, CCU prepared a series of adverts for their Chilean beer brand, Cerveza Cristal. What made them special is that the adverts were designed to fit seamlessly into upcoming TV runs of the Star Wars trilogy. Separated from the film by only a single black frame, Chilean viewers got to see their favourite space heroes repeatedly pause their conversations and fights to briefly unveil some of the crispest- looking refreshments imaginable. Felipe Wielandt, who supervised the project, suggested an almost philosophical reason for inserting the ads into the action: to ‘reach consumers that are becoming increasingly aloof’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pmLwH0mnDAA
The success of the campaign (titled The Force Is With Cristal) was so great that the producers launched an expansion of them, called Breaking Zapping. These saw similar ads inserted into Gladiator, Notting Hill and even American Beauty. Both campaigns went on to win a slew of awards before George Lucas – whom we resent greatly for this – filed claims with the Chilean government and had the ads permanently banned. It’s perhaps the greatest sin on that bearded little freakshow except, maybe, the time he gave David Lynch a searing headache.
Thank you for joining us this week. We will be back with another outing of Capital Letter on Thursday, which we recommend you sign up for here. Remember, there are ten tokens available for discounted subscriptions here too. Woodpeckers’ tongues wrap around their brains.
All the best,
TF