Dear Readers,
Good afternoon, and welcome back to Off The Fence, a Tuesletter that occasionally comes out on other days, written by The Fence’s editorial team. No giveaway offers for you this week, just a reminder that Issue 19 will be on its way to subscribers in the not-too-distant future, and those subscribers will be getting a barnstormer of an issue. Come aboard the good ship by clicking the button below – it’s dirt-cheap, lasts a year, and you’ll come away with no regrets. How many things can you say that about?
A reminder, too, that we are still in the business of giving away Champagne to readers who stick their copy somewhere interesting. We’ve had snaps on slopes and inside architectural marvels so far. Grab your latest copy and take it to a strange place, and we will reward your enterprise with a good bottle of fizz.
We move. This time around, we’ve got a changing of the glossy guard, some vintage Guinness content from before it was cool, and a tribute to a little mouse. But first, moral decay on the streets of south Belfast.
For the Lord Takes Pleasure in His People
We are but a week into Lent at Fence towers. Famously a time for prayer, quiet reflection, a time to ask for forgiveness, particularly, we presume, if you are one of the women who attended The Pleasure Boys, a viral, X-rated event in south Belfast's Devenish Complex, which is currently being investigated by Belfast City Council and PSNI. Videos circulated widely online – we shan’t be sharing them here, but will provide Facebook links via select email request – showed nude dancers gyrating wildly at the Valentine's Day special, for which tickets retailed at the bargain price of £15.
‘Things took a turn’, one woman told a local paper. ‘I've never seen anything like it.’ Another stunned man told the BBC's Stephen Nolan that women ‘stormed the stage’ in an unplanned end to the act, which featured fire and acrobatics, along with full frontal erect nudity. ‘It's absolutely disgusting’, another scarred punter told The Belfast Telegraph: ‘Disgusting and disgraceful. I can't imagine why anyone would want to carry on like that. And then to film it, you should keep it to yourself. It was disgusting. Especially during Lent.’
If you would like to read a piece about full frontal erect nudity that does not take place during the holy season of Lent, here is a piece about male strippers on Blackpool Pier, from Issue 15, for you to enjoy.
Not Even to Dinner With the Kushners?
For a while there, it seemed like the only surefire way to become the Editor-in-Chief of a glossy fashion publication was to simply be a stylist and hope for the best. But that era could finally be coming to an end (what a terrible shame!). Next month's British Vogue — March 2024 — will be editor Edward Enninful's last. In serendipitous timing, his departure will come shortly after the announcement that Alastair McKimm, stylist and Editor-In-Chief of i-D, will be leaving the Karlie Kloss acquired publication effective immediately. ‘IT FEELS LIKE THE PERFECT TIME TO MOVE ON AND TURN THE PAGE ON THE NEXT CHAPTER’, McKimm, who spent five years at the helm of the magazine, after a previous five years as Fashion Director, said on Instagram.
In an article for The Cut speculating on whether editors-in-chiefs will finally write and read actual words again, Chantal Fernandez said the latter title ‘will need an editor willing to put in the time and energy to do more with less and wrangle advertisers and talent. Someone like McKimm — who also styles for Gucci and Marc Jacobs, among other brands — likely has neither the time nor the interest.’ McKimm and Enninful aren't the only stylists as EICs in fashion (‘the type of editor who, a generation ago, was more likely to work closely with the editor-in-chief of a major magazine than actually become one’, Fernandez writes). There's also Samira Nasr at Harper’s Bazaar, Mel Ottenberg at Interview, and Sara Moonves at W. Odds?
Kemi Detached
Readers of newsletters passim will remember our reporting around Kemi Badenoch’s time at the Spectator, namely that she was considered ‘unbelievably crap’ and also someone who proved ‘inefficient and idle, who struggled with organisation, loudly declaring that tasks were her 'top priority, my top priority', before leaving them unfinished at the end of the week.’
That was published amid talk of her being an outside bet for the Tory leadership in the summer of 2022 but has resurfaced of late due to a triumvirate of turmoil that have engulfed the combative Business Secretary in the past two weeks. First, she misjudged the public mood quite spectacularly by tweeting in defence of Rishi Sunak’s gender comments in the commons; bragged about denying arts funding to Irish republican rappers Kneecap, making them first a cause celebre, and then subsequently, active litigants against her government department; and now, she finds herself implicated in the Horizon scandal, via a flame war with former Post Office chair Henry Staunton, who claims he was ordered to delay payouts to postmasters affected.
In each case, Badenoch has seemed all-too-eager to set out her version of events, either by way of her vituperative Twitter account, or her trademark third route: the leaked comment purporting to be from ‘a source’, so perfectly rendered in her uniquely belligerent idiolect that it might as well come with her biometric data attached.
She has, it seems, the true heart of a poster, which means one of the more jarring Badenoch quotes from our earlier reporting now makes a little more sense: she was, she insisted, ‘always on the message boards’. An odd sort of thing to boast about for an aspiring ruler of the world, but then what do we know? In the eighteen months since we shared those words, she’s become the bookies’ favourite to be the next Tory leader. If none of these tribulations finish her off, we think it likely that the tweetings will continue until morale improves.
All Mice Go to Heaven
A sad note: Jill, the well-travelled mouse at the centre of Michelle Taylor’s effervescent essay from Issue 15, has passed away at the ripe old age of four — one year older than domestic mice typically manage. We’re told by Michelle that Jill was buried ‘in a camembert box, surrounded by flowers’ — we should all wish for such beauty and dignity in our final resting place. If you’d like to learn more about Jill’s little life, Michelle’s dispatch is now briefly free to read.
In Case You Missed It
Fergal Kinney lands this week’s most irresistible headline with his fascinating look at the nadir of UK film: ‘The worst film ever made’ – how Sex Lives of the Potato Men broke British cinema.
Noah Rawlings wondered whatever happened to that anti-woke university Bari Weiss started in Austin? Turns out: a lot happened at that anti-woke university Bari Weiss started in Austin.
Jacob Mikanowski on the mind-bending scientific advances changing the face of history.
Simon Parkin on the Manchester barman who rediscovered a lost literary masterpiece, in the New Yorker.
The entire internet was abuzz over Caroline Cowles’ account of handing $50k to scammers — and with good reason.
And Finally
It is less than a month 'till St Patrick's Day and every pub in Soho is still claiming that they — and only they — know how to do a proper pint of Guinness. But the black stuff wasn't always this pathetic object of fetishisation for TikTokers and purveyors of the £8 pour. The Guinness Adverts Project, a partnership between the Guinness Archive and the Irish Film Institute archive, is harkening back to the pre-Diageo halcyon days of pints on TV. The project is cataloguing, digitising and preserving a collection of 16mm and 35mm advertisements made in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.
https://www.instagram.com/irishfilminstitute/reel/C3iPWyLKNoM/
A nostalgic favourite of ours is 'Home Sweet Jail', starring a young Pete Postlethwaite in an advert from the 1970s, directed by Alan Parker. Not a gag about splitting the G in sight.
Here we are, home & dry after another dispatch. We hope that you enjoyed this edition, and as ever, if you need us, support@the-fence.com is the email address for you — whatever it is, we’ll get right on it. Until next time, we must bid you adieu.
All the best,
TF