Dear Readers,
Good afternoon, and welcome to Off The Fence, a newsletter that many people enjoy. It’s the third edition of the year, and there’s no let-up at our end – we’ve got some really juicy stuff on the menu today.
A quick reminder that we are handing over distribution of the print magazines to a professional company, because the task is simply too voluminous to be completed ourselves. As some of you will know, this is standard with nearly all publications. But we do need all current print subscribers to make sure their address is correct on the system, so please login to your account on www.the-fence.com to make sure all your details are the right details. If you need any help please email support@the-fence.com and we’ll attend to you promptly.
And if you haven’t yet signed up, then you really should just get your phone or your purse or your card out and get the deed done. A digital subscription costs just under £20 and you’ll get full access to the archive – everything we’ve ever done – and you’ll be able to read the four issues we’re going to publish in 2024 online. No other new magazine is giving out high quality writing at this sort of rate.
There are some 13,100 of you reading this newsletter now, which is pretty good going – we’ve added 1,000 newbies in the last fortnight. If you’ve got a Substack, and you enjoy what we do, please do recommend ‘Off The Fence’ to your followers – but only if you’re feeling generous.
Now in regards to acts of sweet charity, our quarterly competition has now returned. Whoever is able to provide the best photo of Issue 18 out and about will win a prize of Bollinger champagne. Here’s previous winner, Nadya Oppenheim, with her bouteille, and for further inspiration, have a look at this snap from Katy Hessel. Just tag us in the photo on Twitter and the slightly overpriced but extremely delicious bottle of fizz will be yours.
To business: we’re rolling back the years with Samantha Fox, but first, we pay tribute to Neil Kulkarni, who passed away on Monday afternoon.
Coventry’s Finest
This morning brought the sad news that music writer Neil Kulkarni has died, and at far, far too young an age. Neil barged his way into journalism via a pathway that seems almost impossible to imagine now: writing a letter to his favourite mag telling them they simply weren’t good enough. It helped that his critique – that Melody Maker was failing in its coverage of non-white artists – was true, but it didn’t hurt that it was written with such force, craft and panache that the editors offered him a job in their printed reply. He took it, and the rest was history.
TF were honoured to have his writing in our pages. He is survived by two young daughters, on whom he doted, and for whom a fund has been arranged, should you find yourself in a position to contribute.
Heading Towards Extinction’s Alp
Nesrine Malik is one of the best broadsheet columnists, and her articles for the Guardian are regularly featured in this mail-out. So it’s a real treat and pleasure to have her make debut in our own pages, as she takes a brief pause from the political beat to ponder something far more depressing: elderly Millennials, and their embarrassing relationship with technology and, dare we say it, mortality. It’s accompanied with a bonza illustration by Natalya Lobanova, and you can read it here.
The Garden of England
Kent is one of the most underrated counties in the country, and too often the butt of jokes from dreary middle-aged metropolitan comedians who can’t get a gig on Have I Got News for You anymore. As a teenager, Hussein Kesvani heard whispers of parental orgies in the Kentish woodlands near his school. Back at home in lockdown, he felt impelled to investigate the rumours further. Behold: a peerless dispatch on the Home Counties dogging scene.
How the Sausage Gets Made
A senior figure in the publishing world is responsible for two of the most popular pieces we’ve ever published. Back in the salad days of 2019, their first outing – ‘12 Rules to Get Your First Book Published’ – was a bitterly funny exercise in exactitude, and just three-and-a-bit years later, the follow-up came with ‘A Novel Guide’, which was aimed at those writers who had got on the first or second rung of their authorial career. It was very mean, but also very much true.
Now, we would like to have someone with a similar level of expertise offer insights into a professional sphere that we all encounter often, though not always directly. Are you a jaded rocker, or a pill-popping label exec? Are you a Master/Mistress of the Universe, catching the red-eye to John F. Kennedy International Airport once a fortnight? Are you on the brink of being ‘called’ to the bar? Or maybe you know someone who is? If so, we’d love to hear from you and see if we can knock together a perfecto little insider piece about how your world works. Send us an email to editorial@the-fence.com and we’ll get back to you quickly. We’re keen to hear from anyone with any real knowledge of any industry, truth be told.
Whipping Something Up
Issue 19 is pretty much set in stone, aside from the fiction slot, which is still very much open, and for which submissions are closing on 14 February. We’re looking for something with some edge, some formal playfulness and a dollop of humour, ideally. Have a read of these two entries, one by Tanjil Rashid, and the other by Rebecca Watson to get a feel for tone and scope, and we look forward to hearing from you soon, at editorial@the-fence.com.
Ghastly Otaku Honkeys
Some of you will remember that back in December, Joe Bishop ventured to the UK’s first ‘maid café’ in Bloomsbury, which occasioned a cacklingly funny feature on the nature of the ‘weaboo’, that grotty tribe of Japanophiles.
Now, Adam Bracegirdle-Black has been able to summon the powers of Richard Burton CBE from beyond the grave to narrate Joe’s piece in a wonderfully rich timbre. (We are able to provide the full version upon request.)
Taxi for Hiddles
We have been hearing a number of truly wonderful anecdotes about Tom Hiddleston, who at one time threatened to replace Daniel Craig as James Bond. The actor was at a smart wedding deep in the English countryside, and at the end of the night, tried to cadge a taxi with the immortal line ‘Would it help if I told you I was Tom Hiddleston?’
Two Certainties in Life
It’s great to have stellar names like Hussein Kesvani, John Banville and Nesrine Malik in the magazine. Later this week, we’re going to publish work from Geoff Dyer, prince among essayists, and there’s a lot more to come in the weeks ahead.
Bold-name writers are appearing on our pages with increasing regularity, and we do need to pay them properly, along with the first-time authors who are also getting their first byline. A subscription to The Fence is, we have been told, tax-deductible for the self-employed, which really is sensational news. And for everyone else, it starts at £20 for the year, far cheaper than any other British quarterly magazine.
(TikTok) Time, Gentlemen Please
Have you ever wondered what our pints correspondent, Jimmy McIntosh dresses and sounds like in real life? Wonder no more (though he doesn’t speak like this in real life). Much like his sartorial forebears at TopJaw, Jimmy has pivoted to video, and with real pizzazz, and you can watch his trip to The King’s Head in Finsbury Park here. When he’s the Charlie Brooker of lager-based light entertainment – and married to a former Blue Peter presenter – we hope he’ll remember us.
In Case You Missed It
The ballad of Lars and Bruno: Robert Smith sings the tale of two high-flying financiers.
Ferris Jabr tells the tragic story of Hvaldimir, the beluga whale who was conscripted by the Russian Navy and now swims, AWOL, in the North Sea.
Beatriz Flamini spent 500 days in a cave – by choice. D. T. Max unearths her insane world record bid.
A classic, more than worth a wheel-up: John Jeremiah Sullivan goes to a Christian rock festival in the Ozarks.
Jonathan Nunn profiles the perma-spangled, enigmatic forefather of the wholefood revolution, Nicholas Saunders.
And Finally
While there are a couple of elderly Millennials on our staff, thankfully neither of them are so agéd as to be able to remember Samantha Fox in her 80s pomp, when she neatly turned from inspiring shocking tabloid headlines to pushing out turgid electro-pop:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kB6b5puSpLw
Samantha is back in the headlines, after being kicked off a plane for being drunk and disorderly. She’s lucky there’s no footage of the event, unlike her appearance on The Club, an ITV show that only aired for one series, in 2003. Competing with Dean Gaffney and Richard Blackwood to manage a club called ‘Nylon’ in London, Sam got absolutely hammered while filming and turned on one of her fellow contestants. While dressed as a vampire. It’s reality TV gold:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOEAbg3NgLk
That’s it for this week, a reminder that if you’d like to speak to us about an order or similar such admin, to email support@the-fence.com, and that all pitches should be sent to editorial@the-fence.com. We’ll be back at the same time next week.
All the best,
TF