Dear Readers,
Good afternoon, and welcome to Off The Fence, a weekly newsletter written by the staff at The Fence, a Soho-based quarterly print magazine. Lots of you will be thinking that January has been going on too long, we are minded to disagree: it is a fine month.
Things are ticking over very nicely indeed, and there’s lots more excitement in store. Please remember that if you are a subscriber to the print magazine, then please do check that all the details on your account on the website are present and correct. If you require any assistance please do email support@the-fence.com and we’ll get back to you soon.
If you haven’t yet subscribed, then you can do so at the rate from just £20 for the year, which will give you access to everything we’ve ever published online.
Our competition is still ongoing. All you need to do is send us or tag us in a photo of Issue 18 ‘out in the wild’ and you can win a bottle of Bollinger, a champagne that is both truly sumptuous and slightly overpriced. Have a look at this snap for some inspiration. But remember that we welcome entries from this sceptred isle.
To business, today we’ve got some bits on Emma Stone and Paul McCartney, plus an exclusive on the Prime Minister’s state of mind, but first, a dispatch from Will Nott.
Other Chemicals I Have Known and Loved
Last year, the UK carried out tens of millions of pounds worth of trade with North Korea.
Surprising, given the pariah state is up to its eyeballs in UN sanctions – and the UK government won't (or can't) provide a clear picture around who was trading what.
According to figures from a recent Department of Business and Trade factsheet, total trade in goods and services (exports plus imports) between the UK and North Korea was £67 million in the four quarters to the end of Q2 2023. This makes up £39 million in exports and £28 million in imports. The factsheet did not reveal what these imports and exports actually were, bar the export of some £30,000 worth of ‘other chemicals’.
When The Fence pressed the DBT for more information – asking for a breakdown of both imports and exports and details of how they kept track of this trade – its response was opaque.
‘We take our export control responsibilities extremely seriously and operate one of the most robust and transparent export control regimes in the world,’ a spokesperson for the department said. ‘We carefully assess all licence applications from UK exporters and refuse or revoke licences when they don’t meet our strict criteria.’
The spokesperson made no reference to imports and no further details of the £67 million in trade with our North Korean partners were revealed. The government eventually told The Fence that only the Office for National Statistics could provide reasons as to why the details of the £67 million of trade haven't been published.
The ONS said that the imports and exports were for trade in services. It said it sources data from a set of surveys, in which businesses reveal information about their dealings with other countries. However, the ONS explained that its current trade in services methodology does not allow the organisation to calculate a breakdown of service types for North Korea.
The Fence rang around, asking international trade associations and foreign affairs think tanks whether they had any clue as to what the trade might be. But nobody had any idea.
Edward Howell, a lecturer in politics at Oxford University and an expert on the international relations of North Korea, argued that transparency on the issue would be hard without the government providing more information.
‘My initial thoughts were that this could be some sort of governmental engagement, but then this argument doesn’t really hold very well, as since 2020, the British embassy in North Korea has been closed. The North Koreans have an embassy in the UK that is functioning, with an ambassador. But they don’t do very much.’
‘You really would need a lot more information coming out of London, from the DBT, the ONS etc. That would really be the main way in order to get any real substance on the exact nature of what these imports and exports are.’
This information might be a longtime coming. The ONS explained that survey responses from businesses who have conducted trade in services with North Korea could not be shared for confidentiality reasons.
‘This is not a North Korea specific confidentiality reason, but a wider statistical data point across all survey data collected by ONS,’ a spokesperson told The Fence. ‘Section 39 of the Statistics and Registration Service Act 2007 (SRSA) renders it an offence to disclose information held by the Statistics Board for statistical purposes that would identify an individual or a body corporate.’
So while it is fascinating to speculate about what trade goes on, without the UK government taking a closer look, it seems we'll never know.
You should follow Will on Twitter here.
Geoff in Fence-ice
While this newsletter does its best to shy away from hyperbole, it quite genuinely astonishes us that Geoff Dyer – for it is He – has written for us, and his article on whether we ever truly come of age is available to enjoy on the website.
If you know of any legendary writers who might like to appear in our pages, we’re all ears.
Watch Your Exes Sweat
Women’s football has never had greater exposure in Britain than this very moment, with the triumphs and travails of the Lionesses, and the growth of the Barclays Women's Super League, inducing an unprecedented wave of fandom. And with that fandom comes a new, distinct fan culture – one which is, as Rosie Hewitson outlines in Issue 18, as gossipy and sexually-entangled as the Chelsea dressing room of the mid-2000s. Rosie’s piece is one of the true jewels of the last issue, and we’re delighted to finally have it online – read here, for free, today.
As if Things Weren’t Badenoch Already…
With – so The Fence hears – Rishi Sunak already deep in a state of pessimism, and refusing to communicate with the party apparatchiks who want to cajole him into tedious campaign events, there is once again trouble at the burning ruin that’s left of the ranch for the Conservative and Unionist Party.
Enter last time’s runner-up to the runner-up to the runner-up, Kemi Badenoch. This newsletter has previously covered the President of the Board of Trade’s technically disastrous tenure as Digital Director at the Spectator, but now it appears that technology has gotten the better of Badenoch again. Just one day after her public denunciation of the anti-Sunak schemers, the Guardian uncovered her membership of a WhatsApp group of MPs and spads named, of all things, ‘Evil Plotters’. We’re aware of a few other rogue DMs among Westminster sorts, but we’re always on the lookout for more… especially ones with comically inept names. Do ping us an email if you’ve got any corkers.
Media Apocalypse?
It’s a troubling time in the media, with lay-offs and cuts reverberating around the Condé Nast empire. But things are A-OK here. The editor is not wearing sunglasses to meetings. No one is being sacked. There are no expense accounts. We do not suffer at the whims of a tyrannical creative director who has a suite at the Ritz on retainer.
We’re growing at a fast clip, and subscriptions remain our number one source of income. Starting at £20 for the year, we’re operating at much better value than our competitors and peers. Subscribe today.
The Frock of Gibraltar
John Galliano, who was cancelled avant la lettre, has come back with a haute couture collection for Maison Margiela that is very much worth your time: a genuine piece of theatre.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgMJq67ZOwE
It’s good to see someone talented thrive when they get a second chance, so we hope you don’t mind that we’re giving ourselves a second chance to share Galliano’s house tour from a few years back, perhaps the exemplar of the booming genre of ‘rich middle-aged gay man shows the internet around his kooky residence’. Everyone loves to see it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH_RfTzHFLA
Alasdair Gray’s Lament
While it has a Greek director and a largely American cast, Poor Things is one of the most interesting British films of the 21st century. To mark the event, the Guardian put together an ‘Avengers Assemble!’ roundtable of discourse, an article so inane we won’t link to it here.
But we will share a link to Shona Heath’s website. Shona was Poor Things set designer, and is known for her two-decade long collaboration with Tim Walker. Prepare yourself for some of the most captivating images you will ever see.
In Case You Missed It
Another Great Guardian Long Read, this time from Simon Akam and on a subject everyone enjoys: extreme skiing.
Matthew Lee tells the story of the most implausible prison escape we’ve heard for quite some time.
One from the Bezos Post, on a man who spent a million dollars, and the last good years of his life, building the perfect home hi-fi kit.
Take a look at these astonishing shots of the ‘click farms’ that boost likes and distort algorithms for cash all over the real and virtual worlds.
John Malkovich on really being John Malkovich
And Finally
We have a wonderful, whimsical little clip for you this week, pilfered all the way from 1965: an interview with Alan Durband, Paul McCartney’s A-Level teacher at the Liverpool Institute. Speaking with Australia’s ABC News in Perth in the pomp of Beatlemania, Durband divulges the advice he gave the young McCartney, who always held a candle for the man who taught him Chaucer and ‘showed [him] where the naughty bits were.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-Qqr3ErXng
Durband was, however, far more than just a teacher to a Beatle. Known universally as ‘Dusty’ for the asthma he acquired working down a coal mine as a conscientious objector, Durband was an educator, a socialist, a dramatist and a bon viveur. He co-founded Liverpool’s legendary Everyman Theatre, and then chaired it for over thirty years, helping nurture the early careers of Willy Russell, Julie Walters, Jonathan Pryce, Bill Nighy and Pete Postlethwaite.
Liverpool owes an enormous debt of gratitude to Durband for its enduring and lively arts scene, and the city has not shied away from commemorating him. At the top of Hope Street, opposite the old Institute which reopened – with McCartney’s funding – as a performing arts school, you can find a sculpture of Durband’s briefcase, from which he would dole out the books and scripts that inspired generations of talent in Merseyside and beyond. It would be fair to say, for the breadth of his impact, that the very least we owe Alan Durband is a kindly resurfacing in a weekly newsletter.
C’est fini! Would John Galliano say that? Who knows. That’s all for this week. Don’t forget to drop us a line at support@the-fence.com if there is anything we can help you with. Until next time, have a great week, and we’ll catch you again next Tuesday.
All the best,
TF