Dear Readers,
Welcome to Off The Fence, an honest newsletter. It’s a Sunday evening and we’ve got a buffet of treats, links, tips and gossip for you, as is our wont.
Issue 22 has very much landed with all subscribers and there have been some cracking snaps of the magazine ‘in the wild’. Harriet Fitch Little (correctly) says that is a ‘VERY funny magazine’ with ‘maybe 20 lines’ that made her laugh out loud. It’s providing comic relief at a trampoline park; here is the mag on Manu Ekanayake’s bed; Philip Anderson is taken with our piece ‘The Road to Damascus’; as is Francesca Reece; Ian Leslie says ‘it is packed with goodies’; Orlando Bird is delighted with our Cornish coverage and we’re just pleased as punch that Michelle Taylor’s infamous cat likes the tote bag. (The cat is also called Orlando, as some of you will remember).
Now: remember that the winningest snap of Issue 22 scores a bottle of Bollinger Champagne. Here’s Robert Loyko-Greer – Issue 21’s victor – with his fizzy booty. All you need to do is send through a snap on our social media channels or to editorial@the-fence.com and some overpriced but extremely delicious sparkling wine can be yours.
Issue 22 can also be yours at this link below, or you can click on the artful image of it below to get at it.
We have had a gala year at The Fence, and we are hoping to summit 2,000 new subscribers for the year, so we can keep donating bottles of Champagne to our readers and maintain our extensive Orlando coverage (Orlando Whitfield, Orlando the cat, Orlando Bird… when will it end?)
Patrick Radden Keefe, the legendary New Yorker writer, says ‘The Fence is so good that I have dropped all my other subscriptions. It is now my source for all news.’ You should pay heed, and sign up at the link below.
If you’re already a subscriber, then why not share our appeal on Twitter here, or on Bluesky at this link here. We’re currently on 1,724 for the year.
Let’s get cracking. We’re kicking off with an old friend.
The Sport of Kings
Newsletter mainstay, Thomas Straker, has returned with another YouTube video of painfully relatable content. This time out, he’s in the North Yorkshire moors, shooting grouse at Tory superdonor David Ross’ estate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1HgxDoH688
The whole thing is hosted by Ross’ son, Carl – last seen mangling the lyrics to Sweet Caroline during Boris Johnson’s wedding dance video.
Straker doesn’t just cavort with billionaires, though. He recently headed to Essex to meet ‘Big John’, a man famous for ordering takeaway Chinese meals. Bravo, chef.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PnjE7ugxD4
The Velvet Coffin
Olympia Campbell has sauntered down catwalks for Chanel and Louis Vuitton and has been on the cover of Vogue Italia. So she knows what it’s like to work as a model, and the extraordinary scrutiny you’re placed under when you’re being booked for a campaign.
Olympia has written a fantastic article about some of the fashion industry’s grimmer realities. Do make the time for it. As ever, we are very keen for more of these ‘insider’ pieces, so if you’ve got real knowledge about a secretive, glamorous world, or if you work in a sphere that is misunderstood or misrepresented by the media, then we would love to hear from you. Email us at editorial@the-fence.com and we’ll get back to you promptly.
Top of the Pops
Even as the quarter mark of the century looms into view, we all remain stubbornly obsessed with the 1990s, a decade when things were good (on the whole). Miranda Sawyer was at the heart of the scene that came to be known as ‘Britpop’, and lists the producers, journalists and DJs who fashioned the scene and created a cultural juggernaut that dominated the charts and the headlines here and abroad. We’re absolutely delighted to have Miranda write for us, and you can read her piece here.
2024, in Brief
If you permit us to generalise, it’s been another landmark year for film, an average year for books and TV and possibly one of the best years ever for new music – and certainly the greatest year ever for middle-aged men to publicly emote about Chappell Roan.
If you’re in ill spirits about the state of the world, then do make the time for this Tiny Desk concert from Doechii, an augury, we hope for another 12 months of marvels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-91vymvIH0c
A Good Chuckle with Bobby Davro
Sad news this week, as Duncan Norvelle died at the age of 66 in somewhat straitened circumstances. The variety comedian, who was a television mainstay in the 1980s, was still gigging up until his death even though he was in a wheelchair, recovering from a stroke.
Clive Martin saw Norvelle perform two years ago as part of Jim Davidson’s ‘proper comedy’ night in Portsmouth. It’s a poignant dispatch on a spluttering, dying corner of British life.
In Case You Missed It
This is Journalism: a staggeringly brilliant piece on how America lost the war in a remote Afghan valley.
Annabel Sampson celebrates the Feathers Ball.
A beautiful bit of Camden-centred psychogeography, courtesy of Inigo Thomas.
The hollow allure of Spotify wrapped.
Some more great work on central London’s decline from Jim Waterson at Londoncentric.
And Finally
Last week saw the transmission of the Late Late Toy Show, one of Ireland’s most bewildering and charming exports which sees the world’s longest-running chat show devolve into an anarchic free-for-all of cute kids and horrific jumpers. It’s justly a national treasure for our Irish colleagues but, ever the more maudlin types, it can’t help reminding us of a less festive Late Late Show moment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N31KY7lTKVc
In 1997, a woman named Rita found out live on air that she had won the grand prize in the show’s big raffle. At this point, she informs host Gay Byrne, and the million or so viewers watching at home, that she has suffered a recent tragedy, from which spins ten or so minutes of the most absorbing, engrossing and humane bits of live television ever recorded. Less festive than reindeer jumpers, perhaps, but all the more life-affirming.
That’s it, we’ll be back on Wednesday with another mail-out. If you’d like to speak to us about an order, then please email support@the-fence.com. There is only one of us manning the fort for the rest of the year, for your information, but you will be attended to with all possible haste. Do share the appeal if you like what we do.
All the best,
TF