Dear Readers,
Good afternoon and welcome back to Off The Fence, a newsletter that was waving to the person behind you, sorry.
We’re getting deep into Issue 28’s chrysalis phase and the latest sign that the cocoon is ready to burst is that we have a winner for Issue 27’s photo contest. There was much to be admired this time round – some lovely snaps of horses, photos of famous landmarks, old wine cellars, beautiful views and relaxed holiday trotters – but there was one snap that felt most in line with the issue, whose subject gets a brief mention in the upcoming issue and struck a chord with the sinews of Britain and Ireland’s moral fibres of which The Fence is orthopedic-surgeon-in-chief. We speak of course of Tim Walker’s excellent picture of the issue at the Sycamore Gap.
Many thanks to everyone who submitted and in doing so sprinkled excitement, wonder and mirth throughout the opening section of this otherwise dour mailout. We look forward to the next bout that begins the second 28 flies through your front door. Remember: the winner takes home a bottle of Bollinger Champagne.
We’ve printed out another ten codes giving readers 25 per cent off a year’s subscription, which applies to print, digital or gift numbers too. Just enter the code LRB25 at the checkout and you’ll get four issues of the UK’s Only Magazine for the price of three pints of continental lager in a west London gastropub. It really is a stunningly good deal.
Till then, we have some lovely newsletter pieces to keep you going. In fact, it’s something of a bumper edition. Let’s get it going.
The Art of the Deal
After much hinting and foreshadowing and ankle-showing, the cover story from the latest issue is now online, and with a fresh coda too.
Phin Jennings spent six months working on this investigation of Stuart Semple, an artist who was hailed as ‘the Basquiat of the noughties’ and now operates as a provincial huckster from a studio in Bournemouth.
We’ve been absolutely delighted to see this article ‘blow up’ on different bits of the internet over the weekend, and we hope that people will continue to broadcast the story far and wide. It’s available to read here.
Many people have said nice things about the article, but our favourite one so far is ‘the definitive obituary of the nu-rave movement’ which is not what we were shooting for when we first started working on the piece.
If you have any memories of encounters with Stuart, or anything else you’d like to share, do email us at editorial@the-fence.com.
Six months of reportage and a few barrages of legal letters add up. If you value this type of journalism, and you’d like to see more of it, please do subscribe to the magazine today.
The Fence’s Carbuncle Cup 2026
We have worked and you have waited, and finally, we are delighted to present the 2026 Carbuncle Cup, crowning what we believe to be the very worst new building in Britain built in the past two years. The judges chewed over the nominations. These are the nine buildings shortlisted for The Fence’s 2026 Carbuncle Cup – and there you will find the winners. And, if you are particularly granular in your thinking and would like to understand the behind-the-scenes process more closely, why not watch the Channel 4 coverage by Kiran Moodley of the judging process? We offer our warmest thanks to the architects and engineers who made this project possible, as well as our marvellous judges. As is clear from the numbers on the video below, people really care about bad buildings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkfaZrwGWic
On the Soho Round
Very sad news that our neighbours on Archer Street, Soho Parish School, are poised to shutter owing to declining pupil enrollment. The last school in Soho, children have been taught on the site since 1699, and the current building dates from 1884.
To our ears, this might be more of a harbinger of the ‘death’ of Soho than, say, whether another Simmons bar can open till 2am or whether some private equity-backed restaurant chain can have tables outside on the street, for free. We look forward to the Mayor of London’s next sassy tweet on the subject.
The OG Ted Maul
We’re sad to hear of the death of Roger Cook, whose work we have celebrated in newsletters past. The man made investigative journalism accessible to millions and confronted the UK’s top villains, laughing in their face.
Yet those of us born after the fall of the Berlin Wall find it difficult to watch his work and not immediately think of Chris Morris’ Brasseye, a lodestar for this publication among others.
It’s a similar situation to Craig David, who wrote, produced and sang one of the greatest British albums – ever – at the age of 18, but say his name, and you think of Leigh Francis’ impersonation of him as an incontinent Yorkshireman with a pet hawk.
David’s reputation has risen again, and quite rightly too. We wonder how the future generations will acclaim Cook’s works. Here’s one of our favourites, and indeed the first one he ever did for ITV.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKi-tqRx_Hk
Captain Calamity
Nine years ago, a bus driver called Oliver Salbris stopped a woman from meeting her death on Putney Bridge. Knocked onto the road deliberately by a passing jogger, the woman’s head came inches from a bus wheel, but thanks to Salbris’ quick reactions, disaster was avoided. Salbris has never been properly rewarded (should he not get some sort of medal?) and the identity of the jogger has never been established, despite the offence taking place in the centre of London in broad daylight. That was until yesterday.
The Daily Mail reported that the police had arrested a 44-year-old former British Army officer with links to European royals who currently works as a private banker, which suggests they really, really want to identify the alleged ‘Putney Pusher’.
It is pretty easy to identify who the person in question is, and the same name is being floated around the internet, and it’s a name that is connected to an offence from 13 years ago that is similar to the bus incident. Who will be first to publish? Not us…
Helen of Deal
A Reuters report from 2012 announcing the girl with the most beautiful face in Britain has resurfaced to the fascination of the world, in part because it is always fascinating to see beautiful people, and in part because of the wayward metrics that were used. Florence Colgate was 18 and working at Middle Street Fish Bar in Deal two evenings a week when she won the Superdrug competition, which took a formula for attractiveness devised by a set of researchers – who were presumably noble in their motivation to examine young women’s beauty – as its basis. ‘Researchers who’ve studied attractiveness say, on a perfect face, the distance between pupils is 46 per cent of the width of the face from ear to ear – Florence’s is 44 per cent. The distance between the eyes and mouth should be a third of the length of the face – Florence’s is 32.8 per cent.’
Interestingly enough Florence Colgate – what a name, by the way – now works as a personal assistant at a hedge fund.
Life Is Fabulous
Some things age like fine wine. Others, it has been jokingly remarked, age like milk. It is hard to think of something sufficiently worse than milk to describe how this 2007 episode of The Fabulous Life Of… looks in the cold, cold light of 2026. Zoomed in to avoid being taken down, but still all too visible we present: Billion Dollar Wall Street Ballers, The Fabulous Life of Jeffrey Epstein.
The Mystery Man of Venice
For fans of the various strange figures of Instagram we keep tabs on –you are our favourites, dear reader – we had an interesting update from the enigma that is Andrés Alsina Aristegui.
If you recall at the start of the year we came to you hoping for answers as to his origins. The man is listed (by himself and several stray online blogs) as a legendary designer, model and writer, but his Instagram suggests a mind far weirder. Further investigation brought no elucidation. Recently, he shared this distressing reel, a story about meeting Cate Blanchett and reminiscences of his Basque grandfather which somehow begins with ‘here kitty kitty kitty’.
Our hopes were briefly raised this week when he posted that a blog was publishing a ‘conversation’ with him. We eagerly clicked on only to be disappointed with around 500 words that only seemed to throw down four more mirrors and turn the smoke machine on to full blast. Indeed, the whole ‘conversation’ only features three quotes from Andrés, totalling 19 words, the longest of which is: ‘Venice is a dramatic city which echoes humans in that both are dying.’
We once again plead for further information on this man who frankly seems to be taunting us with this video ‘explaining’ who he is.
Goldsmiths Strikes Again
Things continue to go from bad to worse at the once venerable London university. Already in decline, recent staff protests have seen an increasingly ludicrous state of affairs set in. In response to teacher action, the university apparently decided to suddenly lock all professors out of their own accounts and emails, leaving students confused as to why they were getting left on read by their educators. It’s all rather a shame for a university with quite an interesting legacy, which has housed not a few reputable scholars over the recent years – Mark Fisher and David Graeber spring to mind. This is especially the case if some of the fees are being spunked down the drain in the name of ‘rationalisation’ and, ironically, budget cuts – a mooted £5.35 million spent on consultancy and legal fees. It holds a personal touch for us, as the university is home to a very old student mag indeed and, in the end, we are always on the side of mags.
In Case You Missed It
Luqman Saeed writes from Belfast in the LRB.
A head-cam-equipped cyclist nearly runs over Michael Gove.
Welcome back Peter O’Hanraha-Hanrahan.
Nominations are open for the 2026 Tiny Awards, given to the most beautiful website of the year.
Toby Harden and Jack Dulhanty head back to ‘Bandit Country’ in South Armagh.
Remembering Sonny Rollins and that time he broke his heel and kept on playing the sax.
The documentary that covered Lily Allen’s attempt to open a shop in 2012.
An interesting article about European defence policy from Edward ‘Luttdog’ Luttwak.
Katy Waldeman discusses the Granta debacle in the New Yorker.
And Finally
Have you heard Al Pacino’s Cockney accent? He produced it for a film called The Local Stigmatist, which despite being set in the dog-racing milieu of east London, seems to have been filmed and produced entirely in America. You could watch the whole thing – and if you have, please do write in to give us your review – but the opening is not very auspicious. Pacino seems to be wearing a sort of 1910s Ellis Island-inspired outfit, but, then again, maybe is also doing an 80s nod to Withnail & I? Lots to interpret here. Of course, the main subject of intrigue is Al Pacino doing an English accent, which mutates freely over the isles and then into several contiguous continents. Beneath the ‘Reception’ heading on the film’s Wikipedia page is one sentence: ‘The movie was not a critical success.’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GO5rEeH5JQs
As true fans of the great actor, we prefer his work as a fictitious brand ambassador for Dunkin’ Donuts in Adam Sandler’s film Jack and Jill.
That is that for this week. Do remember to scoop up a cut-price subscription or a single issue here. Remember that all pitch emails are to be sent to editorial@the-fence.com and everything else to support@the-fence.com. If you enjoyed this newsletter – which we are trying to make juicier in content – do drop a ‘like’ or a comment below. ‘Häagen-Dazs’ has no meaning in any language, and is a completely made-up word, invented in 1961 by an ice-cream maker called Reuben Mattus.
All the best,
TF