Off The Fence: Lost In Epping Forest

And a dispatch from John Mappin

Apr 04, 2023

Dear Readers,

Good evening, spring is here, and Issue 15 is with the printers, and should be with subscribers in a couple of weeks. All is briefly well in the world.

We are having a low-key time ahead of Easter, and there will be no newsletter next week. So if your subscription has lapsed, this is the ideal time to get back on the books – subscriptions cost a trifling £30 for the year and are available to buy from the webstore here.

Issue 15 is very exciting indeed, and we’ve got the much-mentioned website finally launching in mid-April, too. So it’s all go around here.

Today, we’ve got some various bits and pieces, but we lead with a featurette on the Tube Challenge from Megan Kenyon.

Station To Station

It’s a Saturday night on the Victoria Line. You and a drunken friend have bundled on at Oxford Circus after a raucous night in central London.

The carriage is a petri dish of the capital’s revellers. There’s a girl consoling her heartbroken friend as she hyperventilates into a screwed-up McDonalds bag, a couple snogging on the carpeted perch near the carriage door, and you, keeping one eye out for your stop and the other on your pal who appears two minutes away from being violently sick all over the floor.

But among the usual weekend punters you spot two blokes with stopwatches who get up to take a photo of the station every time the train pulls into a stop. Now this motley pair aren’t plotting a terrorist attack, instead, they’re completing the Tube Challenge: an attempt to visit every single station on the London Underground network in the fastest time.

The first record for the Tube Challenge was set in 1960 in a time of 18 hours and 35 minutes. Steve Wilson’s current record – which he shares with fellow challenger, Andi James – has shaved this down by almost three hours and currently stands at 15 hours and 45 minutes.

Like all challenges there are some rules which must be obeyed. Competitors don’t have to alight at every station and can travel between lines on foot or by bus. They must take a photo at each station and must record the time that the doors slide open and slide shut. Every hour that elapses during the challenge, competitors must get the contact details of a random member of the public who witnessed them completing the challenge. Later, these strangers are called up to verify the veracity of the challenger’s timekeeping. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, quite a lot. Timetable changes, late running services and signal failures, all of which fall out of a challenger’s control. Steve told me resignedly that his current record should have been ‘eight minutes quicker’ but the last train was delayed.

Worse still, during an unsuccessful record attempt Steve and Andi once found themselves stranded in Epping, right at the end of the Central Line. They had forecast a luxurious two-minute layover at the station before heading back into central London. But then disaster struck. The line had been suspended owing to a signal failure.

‘Epping station is literally in the middle of nowhere,’ Steve said, still obviously exasperated by the memory of a failed attempt. ‘We had to walk about a mile and a half even to get to the nearest pub.’

Simply relying on TfL timetables won’t get you very far in the Tube Challenge: which is why preparation is key. This isn’t a space for amateurs.

As Steve says, rather than attempting the Tube Challenge ‘all in one go,’ the best way for an aspiring record-breaker to ready themselves is by ‘splitting it all into little chunks’ and testing them out. Preparing to break the record is ‘all about finding out what different permutations there are,’ Steve tells me, ‘I mean god knows, there’s so many different permutations.’

If you’re a burgeoning record-breaker in need of specific advice, there is a whole internet community ready to service your Tube Challenge needs. Tubechallenge.com – a message board which was set up in 2006 – has 107219 posts packed with intel on how to beat the London Underground machine. Post topics range from ‘What on earth is up with the Met line?’ to the ‘Most awkward train station’ (it’s Kensington Olympia).

It was here that Steve and Andi met a group of fellow enthusiasts who they accompanied on a record-breaking attempt to visit all the stations which sit along the New York subway. Steve’s Stateside record has since been broken, but he says he’s ‘not that fussed’ about breaking it again.

Will he attempt another record in London? Now there are two new stations – Battersea Power Station and Nine Elms – a new record would wipe the slate clean. But Steve told me he and Andi ‘haven’t got anything firmed up’.

‘I can honestly say I haven’t been out there trying to attempt it since I got that record, seven years ago,’ Steve said, ‘I haven’t needed to.’

As we wrap up the interview, Steve presented me with a picture of a row of neatly framed Guinness World Record certificates trickling down his staircase at home. Where will he put the next one? I asked.

‘Well, there’s a challenge,’ he grinned.

You can follow Megan on Twitter here.

On Dracula’s Trail

Our pints correspondent, Jimmy McIntosh, took a Thamesside trip to Purfleet for his Issue 14 dispatch, and the whole piece is available to read here. It’s a fantastic piece of writing, as ever.

One particular event didn’t make the final copy – when we exited the Thames path as twilight descended, we came across this medieval church, St Clements, its spire set in shadow against the looming mass of the Proctor and Gamble factory. The church is deconsecrated, and was also the filming location for the Simon Callow service in Four Weddings and A Funeral. The churchyard smells sweetly of Head and Shoulders shampoo. It’s one of the uncanniest places in the country.

Bills, Bills, Bills

The move to Substack has been a great success – over 250 people signed up for this mail-out last week. If you’re a new reader, or you’ve been relishing Off The Fence for a while now, please do consider a subscription to the print magazine.

We’ve got a buffet of bills at the moment and a very exhausted editor who is still working even when on holiday to bring you a weekly newsletter. If you value our work, please do sign up today.

Bring Me A Buff Ting

The cultural exchange between Britain and America hasn’t been particularly fair of late. Keith Richards, Adele, David Bowie and John Lennon all made their home in the US of A. The list of Americans resident in the UK is barely as starry. For a long time, Lloyd Grossman was the most famous example, and the sauce entrepreneur was likely who Pizza Express had in mind when they launched their latest campaign, ‘Dinner with Britain’s Hottest American’.

As to the identity of Britain’s sexiest Yank, there have been a few nominations but no clear winner: Gillian Anderson (she’s a dual national); Stanley Tucci (too bald) and Rob Delaney (too opinionated to be hot). Do you know a sexy American who lives on this side of the pond? Let us know in the comments below, or send an email to editorial@the-fence.com.

Been A Long Time, You Say You’ve Missed Me

Yesterday evening, friend of the mag and underground don Joe Muggs made an unexpected foray into commercial pop music, asking his followers why Blue’s Fly By II is not as lauded as their most famous track, All Rise.

Now, in all seriousness: what is the most under-rated chart-botherer from that period? What’s the noughties British pop music track that’s really stood the test of time? We’ll kick things off with this number from a Fame Academy contestant – let us know your nominations in the comments below.

Lemar - 50/50 - YouTube

In Case You Missed It

Lamorna Ash is permanently changed by Iona’s monastery and the magic of the Scottish island.

What Rishi Sunak learned from Nigella Lawson’s father.

But was Nigel Lawson’s ‘success’ an oil-fuelled illusion?

How an Iraqi translator left his home and set up a fentanyl empire in the United States… before it all came crashing down.

‘A lovely person with no airs and graces’ – readers pay tribute to the late Paul O’Grady.

In one of the best investigations of recent vintage, David Kirpatrick uncovers how private intelligence companies are being used by Middle Eastern countries to attack rivals.

And Finally

John Mappin holds a peculiar suite of views: he’s pro-Trump, pro-Putin and anti-vaxx. He’s also the heir to the Mappin and Webb fortune, an Old Wykehamist and a businessman who operates Camelot Castle, a Victorian hotel facing Tintagel beach, reputedly the site of Merlin’s cave. In short, he’s the type of guy who’s putting novelists out of business.

For those of you with an interest in conspiratorial thinking, Mappin’s Instagram account makes for fantastical viewing: here he is broadcasting live from the Saint Tropez lunch spot, Club 55, and then there is this clip. It’s reminiscent of the scene where Martin Sheen is about to assassinate Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now, but it’s not a waterlogged Angkor temple, but the swimming pool of Badrutt’s Palace in St Moritz. It’s time for Louis Theroux to come out of semi-retirement and spend the weekend at Camelot Castle with the Mappins. The gaiety of the nation demands it.

That’s it for this week – and the next. If you would like to speak to a member of the team, please email at editorial@the-fence.com

We wish you all the best this Easter. Speak soon.