Dear Readers,
Good afternoon, and welcome to Off The Fence, a newsletter that would, on reflection, rather be fortnightly in August. But there is so much going on.
After last week’s tickets were snapped up in a few hours, we’ve printed another set of 20 cut-price subscriptions with 20 percent off the year. All you need to do is enter ICECREAM20 at the checkout. The codes apply to all subs, that’s print, digital or both, and to gifts too.
Issue 24 continues to be seen in all manner of places: with a foaming beer; at Inishtrahull, the most northerly island in Ireland; with a celebrated toucan and roaming the streets of Gay Paree.
Just send a photo of the magazine out and about to editorial@the-fence.com or tag us on social media and you could win a bottle of something expensive and fizzy.
Exciting news for those of you who like pubs: our book about the pub, imaginatively titled The Pub, is landing on Thursday. It’s the biggest and best thing we’ve ever done and we will be going on about it at great length next week and beyond. This is the last chance to enter the raffle for the launch. All you need to do is pre-order a book from our friends at Backstory and you can win a night on the tiles with our pints correspondent, the Pintlord himself: Jimmy McIntosh.
Lots of good gossip, mainly on an international level today. Here we go.
Another Rave Review
Another star piece from Issue 24 is now live on the website. The famed free party scene is alive and kicking in the West Country and Wales – all highly illegal, of course – and Patrick Galbraith climbed the Rhigos mountain in search of his bit of the beat. You can read it here – but the piece is an edited and abridged excerpt from Patrick’s book, Uncommon Ground, which was released this year to a host of plaudits.
What Do We Know of Country Matters?
Onlookers may regard us as city slickers, but long-time readers will know that we’ve spread our gaze way outside the M25, from Mark Blacklock’s landmark investigation into Queen Ethelburga’s school in Yorkshire, to Claudia Cockerell’s Cotswolds’ dispatch and Jack Beaumont’s underground reportage from ‘Pick for Britain’.
We are keen to have stories from across the length and breadth of Britain and Ireland – if you’ve got a story of rural derring-do, then do get in touch with us at editorial@the-fence.com and we will attend to you there.
Brothers Gonna Work It Out
Even the Gallagher-haters – and there are a few in the TF offices – will have the cockles of their hearts warmed by this piece of top-tier intel we’ve received about the biggest reunion in… history.
After 15 years together, Oasis split up in 2009, and the Gallagher brothers then descended, as we all know, into more than a decade of private vitriol and Twitter spats. As has been widely reported, Noel’s then-wife, Sara MacDonald, was the subject of extensive ire from her brother-in-law, who took to social media to call her ‘dark’ and the reason the band was no longer together. Liam and Noel’s respective broods spent a long time apart. Noel’s sons with Sara – Donovan and Sonny – are quite a bit younger than Liam’s sons, Gene and Lennon.
It’s been said that it was Noel’s divorce from Sara that made the reunion possible. But we’ve heard from two impeccably placed sources that the driving force behind the band back together is the Gallagher cousins, who’ve got to know each other really well and have compelled their warring fathers to let their rage go, and are now celebrating their achievement with winning family snaps like the one below, featuring Pep Guardiola.
If you will allow us, the narrative of the feuding brothers brought back together after years apart by their children is, for want of a better word… Biblical?
A Straightforward Shooting Weekend
Andrew Lownie’s biography of the life of Prince Andrew has made waves on both sides of The Atlantic, and is set to be a bestseller, there’s a headline on every page and we can’t commend it to you enough.
One fascinating facet of the narrative is that maps out who Prince Andrew’s friends – and some cases, former friends are. Lots of men called Charlie. Elton John. Billy Connolly – a story that really needs to be told. Anyway, it got us thinking: have you ever come across the Pizza Prince in a social scenario? Reach out to us via the usual channels
Party and Bullshit
It is pretty astonishing that a pub with rooms in a Cotswolds town has gained an international reputation. The Bull has only been open in its current guise for about three years, but is, as the lifestyle journalists are wont to say, ‘hot’. The interior may be very dark but the food really is outstanding.
At the time of writing, the US Vice President, JD Vance, is staying in the neighbouring village of Dean. We’ve been told that he asked to visit The Bull, but was politely turned down, not because of his politics – but because Kamala Harris’ security gnarled the place during her visit for the Jobs nuptials.
Karma Karma Chameleon
We will admit that Reddit is not our natural habitat, all though the questions being asked in r/theatre are making it one of our favourite places to hang out.
However, we have noticed that it is quite useful for posting articles and ‘doing numbers’ as we say in the trade. We are told that you must have ‘good karma’ (whatever that means) to publish and promote your own content. If any redditors lurking in this newsletter would like to take on the mantle of spreading the good word about our best pieces – like the ‘Tina Triangle’ – then we would be much obliged.
In Case You Missed It
One of the best bits of British journalism of the year: Jemima Kelly goes to a garden party with the new, new right.
New York mag lands the marmalade-dropper of the week, with the tale of the Crypto Torture Townhouse.
What happens when you take a scam recruiter up on their offer
The word woke is much older than you think and its history is well worth knowing.
AI story-writing assistants can’t stop hallucinating one woman, and her name is Elara Voss.
And, in one of the more jawdropping things we’ve ever seen, Benn Jordan AKA The Flashbulb saves a PNG image to a bird.
And Finally
Parliament is set to take a look at driving rules for the first time in decades this October, with ministers reportedly eyeing up mandatory eye tests for over 70s, and a rethink of current alcohol limits. Presently, those stand at 0.08% blood alcohol content in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and 0.05% for our friends in Scotland.
Standardised alcohol testing for motorists was first introduced in the late 60s, and greeted with consternation by many who saw it as the nanny state at her most stern and censorious. A view from the time comes in this delightful news clipping in which a doughty reporter descends on the Green Dragon in Shenfield on the eve of the breathalyser’s introduction, in 1967.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_tqQYmgMQg
There, he finds a cohort mostly unmoved by talk of 13,000 yearly alcohol-related deaths on Britain’s roads, or the dangers of booze-addled drivers. ‘It doesn’t take into account’ offers one responder, ‘the pedestrian who’s had too much to drink – he could cause an accident’. Producing a breathalyser for patrons to try out, there follows a charming, if mildly unnerving, time capsule of very pissed people blowing into bags, slurring their disinterest at its findings, and cheerfully driving home.
If they did need convincing of the difference a few drinks makes to your driving prowess, they could do worse than watching this RTE footage of an experiment conducted by UCD ten years later, in which killjoy boffins put the science of bladdered driving to the test.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4BdBIg9jKU
You may know what’s coming when beginning a video entitled ‘Driving on 4 pints and 7 whiskeys!’ but it’s no less riveting, or revelatory, for it. Thus ends our screenings for the evening. Do please drive safely home.
That’s that for this week, enjoy the heat or swelter in horror, delete as appropriate. Don’t forget you can always buy a mag, map, tote bag or discounted subscription here. If you’ve got any administrative issues, please email us at support@the-fence.com. Bruce Forsyth was born six months before the invention of sliced bread. Speak soon.
All the best,
TF