Dear Readers,
Good afternoon, and welcome to a special edition of a special newsletter, Off The Fence. We’re going to have a conventional newsletter on Friday, with all the links, tips and vids you all relish so much. Before we get going, allow us to remind you that Issue 18 is out in the wide wonderful world and you can get your hands on a copy right here
A quick reminder that if you would like to speak to us about an order, please email subscriptions@the-fence.com, and that subscriber copies are being mailed out tomorrow, and should be with you on Friday if you are resident in the UK or Ireland.
Whichever way you look at it, 2023 hasn’t been the greatest year. The vibes have been a bit off, to say the least. So we thought we would issue a corrective of sorts, by asking a question to friends, contributors, C-List celebrities and elected officials of various nation-states: what’s the funniest thing you’ve seen all year?
And we had some absolute corkers in response. Here we go.
Nick Baines, Bishop of Leeds
Discussing sex with large groups of bishops on an all-too-frequent basis; watching Barbie in a local old cinema and seeing clergy friends sneaking in in mufti in the dark; driving through Brannau-am-Inn in Austria, and seeing the sign that says ‘Welcome to Brannau-am-Inn – The Birthplace of Adolf Hitler’.
Stevie Martin, comedian
I saw a pigeon defecate off a balcony onto another pigeon. The pigeon below was horrified. He looked up and sort of bustled about, looking very offended.
I also WhatsApped my mum some exciting work news, and she didn’t read it but instead messaged me a description of how she’d accidentally taken an egg with her to the pharmacy in her bag and it had broken but the inner softer film had remained intact so she’d held the egg in her hand for the 40 minutes she was at the pharmacy as well as in the car home. Nobody in the pharmacy asked her about the egg. I wish I’d been there. She sent me multiple pictures of the egg from various angles when she got home.
Richard Osman, renaissance man
The funniest thing I've seen this year is the half-hour video of Irish artist/comedian Bobby Fingers making a boat out of a cast of Jeff Bezos' face. It starts off ridiculous, and gets increasingly and brilliantly barking as it progresses. But so skilfully and beautifully made too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGhcSupkNs8
Jimmy McIntosh, The Fence’s pints correspondent
In the early days of spring, I found myself on Essex Road with the uncontrollable urge to bumble my way through Dickie Valentine’s Finger of Suspicion to a crowd of disinterested boozehounds. Handily, The Green Man – east Islington’s premier karaoke hole – was a mere fag’s breadth away. Upon crossing the pub’s threshold I immediately encountered probably the most surreal scene of my year. On stage, two teenage emos performed a note-perfect rendition of Stan by Eminem. Their audience consisted solely of a young couple having a loud tiff by the pool table; three old dears vacantly drinking shorts; and a shirtless bloke dancing on his chair who, according to his similarly sozzled wife, ‘always got like this’ to Eminem. It was 8.30pm. As soon as the teens finished playing, the pot-bellied Patrick Swayze toppled off his bar stool and sheepishly put his top back on. It was, naturally, a Rangers shirt.
Ian Martin, comedy writer
Our granddaughter has at least one sleepover a week at ours. She has one of those toothbrushes with a suction pad on the bottom. After she finishes cleaning her teeth she hides the toothbrush. Some good spots too – on a doorknob so it nearly takes your eye out when you open a door, right in the middle of a clock face (took us ages to find) and my favourite, glommed neatly over the face of my late mother-in-law in a photograph from the 1930s. An act so callous, so unthinking I couldn't stop laughing for ages.
Patrick Freyne, Irish Times feature writer
I read an essay on ‘the short story’ that Flannery O'Connor wrote but also delivered to a group of aspiring writers. She begins by wondering why anyone would want to hear her talking about such things because writing short stories comes so easily and naturally to her. She follows up with: ‘Then last week, after I had written down some of these serene thoughts to use here today, my calm was shattered when I was sent seven of your manuscripts to read. After this experience, I found myself ready to admit, if not that the short story is one of the most difficult literary forms, at least that it is more difficult for some than for others.’
I can't stop laughing at this, just imagining what it must be like to have Flannery O'Connor read one of your stories and have it change her view of writing because of how shit she found it. I literally laughed in horror for about an hour.
Joe Bishop, Quo Vadis mainstay
It’s not from this year, but I saw it for the first time this year, and I couldn’t breathe.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNXWZOJOe3A
Mark Blacklock, esotericist
Oh god, this is going to damn me to hell. A recent video from the Twitter account ‘Chaotic Nightclub Videos’ features a drunk oaf attempting to plant a kiss on an unsuspecting and curiously made-up woman in a nightclub, only for the real woman to turn around and for the guy to realise he was about to snog a mask she was wearing on the back of her head that had clearly been giving him the come on.
I am deeply ashamed to admit that such Twitter accounts – see also ‘Scottish Banter’ – give me far more joy than the high-minded pursuits with which I would prefer to be associated.
Caroline O’Donoghue, author
This video of two 12-year-old girls dancing in their computer room to Whenever Wherever. I think I’ve watched it every day for about a month. The hoodie one reading the words off the screen. The scarf one, too confident.
I have spent a long time discussing and thinking over which one I identify with. Now I’m 100% scarf girl, very proud of myself for existing, and find myself to be a very gifted mover. But at 13 I was for sure the hoodie one, very wooden, very afraid of being caught having a feeling.
The representatives of Jilly Cooper, novelist
Thank you very much for this, but Jilly isn’t taking on any further commitments right now.
The representatives of Sir Paul McCartney, Beatle
Paul’s on tour in Central America right now – that’s where the focus is so this won’t be possible.
The representatives of the Prime Minister of Singapore, politician
Thank you for your interest in featuring Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in The Fence magazine. As the Prime Minister is currently overseas, we are replying on his behalf. We regret to inform you that we will not be providing a comment. Thank you.
Clive Martin, writer
It wasn’t funny at the time, but a huge, bright green parakeet came down my girlfriend's chimney. She has stoppers which mean the windows only open half way, and we spent hours trying to coax this incredibly stupid beast through a foot wide gap. At one point it seemed most likely that he would kamikaze himself into a wall before we could get him out safely. We called him Rico.
Kieran Morris, The Fence’s deputy editor
It’s a tough one, but I’m gonna have to go with Trump at the funeral of Diamond from Diamond & Silk.
Harriet Fitch Little, the FT Weekend’s Food & Drink editor
The best show of the year was Jury Duty, a mockumentary where a guy called Ronald thinks he is serving on a jury but is surrounded by actors. There’s a scene where Ronald is asked to share his last memories of a juror who has supposedly just been rushed to hospital, but the last thing that man (an actor, you see!!) shared with him is that he was off to have a wank in the loos. Ronald, the world’s best man, refuses to dob him in and I laughed so much I had to watch Gardeners’ World after to calm down. I have two wishes – to find and marry Ronald, and that the premise of this TV shows was easier to explain
Séamas O’Reilly, The Fence’s features editor
Nothing this year has made me laugh as much as Nathan Fielder’s HBO series The Rehearsal, in which he solves the problems of real people via absurdly complex means. In helping a quiz-addicted New Yorker admit a long-held secret to his friends, he decides that the interaction will go smoothest if he helps him ace the trivia game they’ll be attending.
What follows is a bewilderingly complex series of recreation and rehearsal, culminating in a stroll around Manhattan, in which Fielder contrives to have passers-by provide the answers to every question that will be asked the following night. The entire episode is punishingly funny, but from the moment I watched a shell-shocked cop, speaking from behind a crime scene cordon, solemnly intone ‘it’s days like these I curse the Chinese for inventing gunpowder’, I knew it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen.
Marina O’Loughlin, restaurant critic
Maybe the old woman I witnessed setting about one of those enraging red light-jumping cyclists at Old St roundabout? Literally with her handbag. Or the tuna and banana taco served at an ambitious wine bar in Sicily? Or the very black humour of Dominic Cummings' COVID inquiry testimony?
Jamie Taete, photographer
This church I snapped in Dallas.
Jack Beaumont, light entertainer
“14 gingers on a 177 must be some kind of record”
Simon Thorp, Viz editor
Back in September we went to see Peter Serafinowicz’s Brian Butterfield: Placeholder Name Tour at Whitley Bay Playhouse. The famous ‘circus horse dentist’ and ‘Lord Mayor’s croupier’ imparted all his business wisdom, in between suffering a near-fatal cardiac infarction on the stage, setting off a rocket into space, and performing an energetic gangster-rap medley.
It was quite the evening, and it ended with my favourite daughter Alice graduating from the prestigious Butterfield ‘Univesity’.
Anonymous RightMove Surfer
If you look at the listing for this house in Crouch End, you will find the most thrilling interior design moment. Lucky Jim’s pink neon moment.
John Banville, one of the world’s best novelists
Recently I found myself, never mind why, in Gstaad, at a very posh dinner party for fifty or so people in the town’s Yacht Club – yes, a yacht club, in the middle of the Alps. I was seated beside a lively and highly flirtatious nonagenarian Irish actress, who brought the evening to a close by singing, microphone in hand and accompanied by a three-piece band, a rousing version of It’s a Long Way to Tipperary. She, the singer, was not funny, but my goodness the occasion was.
Caitlin Moran, columnist
Horse kicks tree, farts on dogs, runs away.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCzwyFHSMdY
Emerald Fennell, writer-director of Saltburn and Promising Young Woman
Funniest thing I watched in 2023 was the new series of Tim Robinson's I Think You Should Leave on Netflix. I've watched it a million times!
Craig Brown, legendary satirist
Those who doubt that the past is another country should watch BBC1's weekly Seaside Special from 17 August 1975 on YouTube, filmed in a circus tent in Torbay. The highlight is Tony Blackburn wearing extravagantly flared trousers and a blue and white striped blazer singing Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree while standing on a table in a cage surrounded by five restless, growling lions and geriatric lion-tamer. At no point is it explained why he is singing this jaunty song to these lions, and the peculiarly elderly audience don't seem to question it. Perhaps more funny peculiar than funny ha-ha, but funny nonetheless: I've watched it half-a-dozen times, and have then stayed for the other acts: Janet Brown impersonating Nana Mouskouri and Fanny Cradock (‘Hello, I'm Fanny Cradock’), Kenneth McKellar singing O Sole Mio, a naff comedy duo called Dailey and Wayne, and, for those who like that kind of thing, Abba singing Waterloo.
Coincidentally, the funniest book I read this year also came out in 1975: Malcolm Bradbury's The History Man. Why had I never read it before? It's a brilliantly sharp, perfectly constructed satire on campus life in the Seventies, which deals with virtue-signalling and cancel culture long before either of those terms were coined. Nearly 50 years on, unlike Seaside Special, it's as fresh as ever.
Arthur Mathews, comedy writer
I went on a football trip to Italy with three fellow Drogheda United fans, ‘Mick The Mod’,‘Spon’, and Barry. We went to Monza v Torino and the next day Brescia v Cremonese. After the Monza game, we had to get back to Bergamo (to our hotel). There were no trains at night and it's about a 40 kilometre jaunt back. Barry happened to get chatting to an Albanian in the toilet at half-time who said he'd give us a lift because he lived in Bergamo; 'There are four of us' – 'No problemo!' We met up with him after the game and he crammed us all into his small car which also contained his six-year old son.
The young fellow sat on Mick The Mod’s knee, and when we passed any police (who were all around the ground) he had to crouch down and hide. The Albanian couldn't speak much English, and we couldn't speak Italian, but he told us (I think) that he owned chickens in both Albania and Italy. He also seemed to have an interest in prostitutes and drugs. He drove at great speed but went about ten kilometres out of his way to drop us at the hotel.
Naomi Alderman, novelist
Mark Zuckerberg & Elon Musk challenging each other to a cage fight.
Ian Rankin, crime novelist
Don Paterson’s Toy Fights is the autobiography of the Dundee poet and jazz guitarist. Wait! Come back! Okay, it talks about his time flirting with hardcore Christianity and also about his psychological breakdown, but…where are you all going??! Listen: it made me laugh out loud more than any book this year. The man writes funny lines and holds himself up to mirthful ridicule. And let’s be honest – can you imagine Andrew Motion being half this talented? No, you can’t.
Lauren Laverne, broadcaster
Leo Reich’s one-man set, Literally Who Cares?, was fantastic.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCj_ut8LzLQ
Róisín Lanigan, The Fence’s contributing editor
I was at a very glitzy fashion party recently when a group of beautiful women handed their phone to an artist and asked him to ‘take a picture, take a picture’. Rather than assuming – correctly – that they simply wanted a photo of them looking hot, he gathered up all his materials and posed in front of them for what could well have been several minutes. When he finally realised (the women started laughing, loudly) rather than trying to play it off he looked at me dead in the eyes and said, gravely: ‘It’s fine. That’s the kind of thing that keeps me humble.’ Painful.
Francisco Garcia, author of We All Go Into the Dark
This really did me make laugh, but it was in 2022. Earlier this year, I saw a man punch a train at Victoria station after he missed it by mere milliseconds. The impotence of the gesture really tickled me.
Mickey Down, co-creator of HBO series, Industry
Now I was going to try and frame this answer through a clever political point about the state of what purports to be ‘modern Britain’ or how objectively undemocratic it is that in a modern democracy someone can be imprisoned for 12 hours for protesting a 1000 year old power structure but I think that would be attempting to highfalutin-ise something that’s essentially very primal. Yes this answer may make me sound sociopathic, but there are few things funnier to me than seeing a dear friend humiliate themselves. It’s a feeling that’s only amplified when the humiliation takes place in front of millions of people. So the funniest thing I saw in 2023 was a posh bloke who works in advertising and wears trainers that cost more than a two-up two-down in Stoke-On-Trent arrested on live TV for attempting to… quite honestly I still don’t know what he was doing… but I’m going to go with overthrow our dear sovereign.
Sadly my friend’s coup d'état was unsuccessful, but he was released and managed to use the experience to raise more awareness for… whatever he was doing that day. He also garnered a modicum of celebrity within anti-Charlie circles and became a bit of a rent-a-gob wheeled out for tv hacks to shout at. The the apogee of this was the second funniest thing I saw in 2023. It’s what I would call a Matrixy moment’ - when the simulation runs out of options and starts firing off randomly generated connections. Now of course it’s not often the venn diagram of right wing populist politics, left wing protests, the crown and my social circle overlap but when it does… it is really very, very funny.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIPu0KYhUX8
Tristan Cross, co-writer of The Great Amazon Heist(Channel 4)
Spent a good half of this year bullishly decrying advances in AI and image generation as the harbinger of nothing except cheap novelty for dull-witted schmucks, and then another half-furiously typing combinations of ‘visibly haggard Yoda wearing a stone island jacket slumped in a sofa nursing a can of supermarket lager and listlessly texting every number on his phone at 6am at an afters in a south-east London bedsit while Peter Griffin tries to get the bluetooth speaker working’ into Bing and gleefully sharing the results in every group chat, despite rapidly diminishing interest or even acknowledgement.
We’d like to say thank you so much to Ian Martin, who helped us collate this list. We hope you enjoyed it – we’ll be back again on Friday.
All the best,
TF