Dear Readers,
Hello hello, and welcome back to Off The Fence, ein newsletter von der UK’s Only Magazine.
There’ve been no extra sightings of Issue 22 jaunting across the globe this week, and with good reason: it has pretty much sold out. According to our lovely stockists, there are now only 20 copies of our greatest-ever issue on sale in the United Kingdom, having been snatched off shelves from Aberdeen to Penzance and everywhere else besides.
As a result of the comically kind sale we’ve been sloughing your way this year, we are now also running out of Issues 18 and 19, too. By March, we anticipate that the entirety of our 2024 output will be gone from our warehouse, only to be fought over in vicious eBay battles and testy collector swaps ‘round the back of magCulture. If you want one of the very last mint-condition copies, purchased straight from the source, head to our shop page and snap them up today because they will not be there for long.
One final reminder. Sign up for a print & digital subscription and you’ll get #18, #19, #21, #22, #23, #24, #25 and #26 – and a snazzy tote – for £35. Click the pic beneath, or the button lower still, and get your fix before we pull up the shutters. There are only fifteen of these bundles left, we cannot give anymore. We just cannot.
Cleats on, let’s tackle. This week, we’re targeting the decidedly soft shins of Amol Rajan, Harris Reed and Kash Patel. But before we get sent off, let’s discuss an upcoming title from a promising middle-aged author.
Liebes Tagebuch
Even if you spent time in the reporting trenches during the last gasps of the Tories’ 14 years of misrule, the excerpts from Simon Hart’s diaries make for shocking reading.
Scheduled to be published on Thursday, the diaries track Hart’s tenure as chief whip under Rishi Sunak. One 2019 intake MP rang Hart at 2.45am to tell him that he was in a brothel ‘with 12 naked women and CCTV’. We have learned the identity of that MP, unnamed in the book. He is, thankfully, no longer in office.
There are other stories too grotesque to repeat here. But a theme emerges, of youngish politicians, who often worked in local councils, winning a snap election six years ago and arriving in Westminster totally unvetted, and then spending five years being perma-pissed at the Carlton Club and various grotty pubs around SW1.
There are, of course, unreported scandals around the messy private lives of Cabinet ministers during this time, but it seems that Hart has omitted these particular stories.
Tellingly, he has mentioned that in February 2023, the-then Prime Minister Rishi Sunak referred to one Cabinet minister in these terms following a promotion: ‘Let’s all agree on one thing… she is f*cking useless but we can’t get rid of her.’
Only three women were appointed during that reshuffle: Lucy Frazer, Michelle Donelan and Kemi Badenoch. All the Tory insiders we’ve spoken to are very clear as to who Sunak was referring to.
The Face of The Face
Run, run, run to the National Portrait Gallery: they’ve got a cracker of an exhibition on right now, ‘Culture Shift’, showcasing 40 years of The Face’s finest work. It’s a riot from room to room, with shots from groundbreaking photographers like Elaine Constantine and Sheila Rock, coaxing beauty and chaos out of Kurt Cobain, Kate Moss and Charli xcx like no other mag could muster.
For all the glories in the gallery, however, none come close to the man in charge, Matthew Whitehouse, now beginning his fifth full year as Britain’s most handsome editor. A Burberry model and indie-pop frontman before joining this most uncool of professions, Whitehouse – ominously – seems to be getting more good-looking each day as he walks hand-in-hand with Father Time.
How do we compete with that? Multiple efforts by the editorial team to have our spines stretched and cheekbones sanded to angular precision have left us yet more disfigured than we started, and in quite a lot of pain, too. It’s not fair, but that’s life. He’s really nice as well, and runs a great magazine. Christ. Anyway, you can buy tickets for the exhibition here.
Something in the Water
Fresh from listening to Big L while picking up an oat cortado, Amol Rajan continues his campaign to supplant Tom Hiddleston as the cringiest Cantabridgian of recent vintage. Watch here as he tells the wonderful and wise Jamie Laing about his life as ‘a secret raver’. But speaking of clandestine nocturnal gatherings, maybe Amol might like to tell us more about Lord Lebedev’s parties?
Better Red than Dead
It’s been a huge year for swivel-eyed lunatics, but in a crowded field, Kash Patel cuts through. The ninth head of the FBI cuts a needlessly intimidating figure in his Department of Defense headshot; a visage that screams ‘what did you say mate’ as you gently knock his shoulder on the way to the bogs.
But another Patel shot caused greater concern this week: this one, of the new top cop chatting to assembled media about his imminent confirmation to the Bureau.
Computer, enhance: that looks an awful lot like a Liver bird at the bottom of that stripy tie. Very sadly, we have little choice but to conclude that Trump’s spiky-haired Hoover is a fan of league leaders Liverpool FC. Either that or he has a Scouse stylist on his staff, which would be just as inexplicable.
To balance out this fleck of unpleasantness on Liverpool’s fine reputation, tuck into some of our coverage on the city over the last few years: our dispatch from the site of the failed 2021 Remembrance Sunday bombing, or Josh Mcloughlin’s superlative essay on the shifting borders of ‘Scouse’ from Issue 15.
First-Person Shooters
A tease from Issue 23, which went off to our designers last week: in the next edition, we have an unimpeachable set of first-person stories gleaned from some of the most secretive and little-discussed industries in the world, bringing insights we’re confident to say that you will not find anywhere else. More on them soon, but for now, a reminder that we love nothing more than top-shelf office revelations – and you don’t even need to have written before to share them.
Like two of our stars in the next issue, you can write anonymously in our pages about your line of work, whatever it may be. We thoroughly intend to keep platforming these stories in 2025, so bring the heat to editorial@the-fence.com and we will attend to you promptly.
Mum Says Stop Being Mean to Me
Harris Reed – a.k.a ‘The Rude Lady of Notting Hill’ – is back terrorising fashion week again. The people of Instagram fashion curation account Boring not com, who have eyes, were unimpressed by Reed’s latest collection. They gave the FW25 collection, which was inspired by the insides of living room furniture, just three out of 10. Evidently Reed was unimpressed – he followed the account, in an extremely ‘I’m not owned!’ move – but his mother was even more put out.
Lynette Reed took to the comments section to ride out for her talented little angel, responding to comments asking in many variations the same question – ‘how the fuck is Harris Reed famous for being a fashion designer’ – with her own takes. ‘He works harder than anyone I have ever known’, wrote mummy, who noted his struggles with severe dyslexia in the past. A moving reminder to be kind to others, because you never know what they’re struggling with in private.
25 Cromwell Street
Ian Huntley, Harold Shipman and Dennis Nilsen are all puffing on cigarettes outside the courtroom. No, this isn’t the start of a tedious joke, it’s what happens on the sets of documentaries like Britain’s Most Evil Killers, in which groups of actors who specialise as playing serial killers make money from simulating the actions of the worst people in the world. The piece – which has been brought together artfully by Bethany Elliott – is available to read here.
A Round of Texas Holden
Monopoly Lifesized is, as the name suggests, a game where you, a human being, can play the board game Monopoly, in what the marketing mavens refer to as ‘an immersive experience’.
Michael Holden went and did exactly that, and has written a lovely short burst of psychogeography on Tottenham Court Road. Read it here.
In Case You Missed It
The New Yorker centenary issue is garlanded with jewels: buy an issue in glorious print while you can, but you can enjoy Jill Lepore on the magazine’s editorial battles. A must-read for anyone ‘in the game’.
Britain’s fantasies of defence: a provocative bromide from Aris Roussinos.
What do I owe my sister? Dealing with family estrangement.
Another piece from the NYer centenary issue, pathetic suck-ups that we are. Feature god Burkhard Bilger on how American high school bands turn marching into a sport – and an art.
From the ever-excellent Vittles: how a chance encounter at Dalston Sainsbury’s sparks emotional release.
And Finally
Long-time readers know that we are deep and dutiful fans of John Galliano, the once-cancelled fashion genius who has just left Maison Martin Margiela. In this video, the serpentine Streathamite takes you on a tour of his countryside home. Dressed, as Geoff Dyer once put it, ‘like Conan the cross-cultural Barbarian’ and speaking like the lovechild of Douglas Murray and Princess Diana, we will be deeply disappointed if JG’s Cribs clip doesn’t fill you with joy:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QH_RfTzHFLA
That’s not it for the week, we’ll be with you again on Thursday with the Capital Letter. We are running out of magazines and totes and maps, so do move quickly if you’d like to buy one. All queries to editorial@the-fence.com and we hope you’re enjoying the first blush of spring. You can feel it in the wind!
All the best,
TF