Off The Fence: A Dog's Dinner

And we pay tribute to Keith Floyd

Dear Readers,

Good afternoon, and welcome to Off The Fence, a newsletter that many describe as ‘hip’ and ‘with it’. Issue 23 has been proving a hit up and down the country and will now be reaching readers across the Atlantic. Now, as longtime readers know, each issue comes with a competition. The winningest snap of the magazine scores a bottle of Bollinger Champagne as a prize, a ludicrously generous offering on our behalf. You can either send your photo to editorial@the-fence.com or you can tag us one of our social media accounts, the choice is yours.

Snake Denton has paired the issue with what appears to be a foaming lager, while some intrepid soul has partnered the divine Dua with Ed Steed’s cover at Waterstones Picadilly; Chris Coates couldn’t help but reference friend of this newsletter, Mr Russ Jones, while DJ Action Sandals dispatched this perfect Sunday scene, and Jamie Fewery seasoned it up with some rhubarb.

Keep sending your entries through. Most pleasing of all has been a remark from David Stainer, who writes ‘The Fence is usually pretty good. But I thought this issue was absolutely remarkable – a sequence of absolutely stellar pieces and one of the best issues of any magazine I’ve ever read.’ This is what we like to hear!

Now, we have drummed up ten final tokens for April giving you 20 percent off, that’s print, digital or both.

Things are really coming together very nicely at the moment, and there are lots of exciting projects on the launchpad. If you’d like to help us grow, or know anyone who might help, please get in touch with the editor at cb@the-fence.com. We are especially keen to hear from people who might stock us in print. Issue 23 is currently the best-selling magazine at Good News on Berwick Street, which is great, and we’d like to see that happen elsewhere. Right, enough boasting. This week, we’ve got a juicy dog biscuit of a dispatch for you, courtesy of George Francis Lee.

The Bitchiest Cat at Crufts

Dog showing, or exhibiting, is a sport defined by its masochism. The shows are tediously long, stretching on for hours and into days. With little to do, the mind numbs: people fight for camping chair spaces among the burger van odours. Competitors tramp up and down the country, racking up thousands of miles as they wheel their dog trolleys from show to show.

The sport is racked with accusations of favouritism and cronyism regarding The Kennel Club, the UK’s premier ‘dog health, training and welfare’ organisation, which run Crufts, the Wimbledon of dog shows, along with over 4,500 yearly dog shows and events. Most of these complaints never leave ring-side chit-chat, but one source of bitching has rocked the dog world: the Clarges Street Cat.

Named after the KC's Mayfair headquarters, the Cat is a real-life Gossip Girl for the geriatric world of dog showing. Publishing from a Facebook account, the Cat releases tranches of drama, controversy and conspiracy to nearly 7,000 followers through daily cryptic posts, which allege everything from relatively minor offences like judge bribing and backstabbing to serious criminal accusations of animal abuse and paedophilia. One anonymous exhibitor describes it as ‘a group of intended vigilantes airing the dirty laundry of The Kennel Club elite through the language of early 2010s cat memes.’

In one such post, the Cat discusses how an unnamed secretary cancelled a committee meeting after getting a ferry to see his stroke-stricken mother (a bogus story, according to the Cat, as they’d allegedly seen him carrying a takeaway outside his home). In another, they publish an anonymous tipster’s information about an infamous case of a missing Water Spaniel along with a kennel fire that resulted in 14 dead pedigree dogs.

These posts are drenched in so much dog show cant, rhyming slang, and inference that only those deep within the showing community can translate their coded messages. ‘Those who know, know,’ once wrote the Cat. Like all whistleblowers, the Cat is not keen on talking to journalists and declined to chat over the phone, but did agree to correspond over WhatsApp.

‘There are several of us from all over the country,’ the Cat says about its operation. ‘We like people to think it’s just one person.’ Their self-described goal is to bring accountability against alleged corruption in the esteemed halls of The Kennel Club, which is a mission that first began on the 18th of July 2024. ‘We had been considering starting a page for a while to try and clean up the dog scene, but the KC removing Caroline Kisko… was our springboard.’

Kisko, who was Crufts Secretary for 21 years, is the subject of a major controversy at the KC. Her tenure ended in 2019, when she resigned amid reports she used a racist idiom to two colleagues. Later in 2024, she was voted in as a KC board member, but was ousted after only one meeting in the role. Newer developments have seen her KC membership suspended, and she has been banned from stepping foot into 10 Clarges Street altogether. The community is split on this. One of the rarer young exhibitors describes Kisko as ‘the racist witch’. Meanwhile, the Cat and others take a different stance on the KC’s democratic process. ‘Recent events concerning Kisko show that the bullying and prejudice against her is ongoing by an unfit chairman and board,’ they say. ‘We will continue to fight for justice and fairness in the dog community.’

Even if you accept the premise, success at this pursuit is hard to gauge. The Cat claims to get hundreds of messages every day, and to have helped remove multiple paedophile judges from the sport. Others are sceptical that quite so many child abusers have infiltrated dog shows, and wonder where the concrete evidence is of what The Kennel Club press office calls ‘third-party reports and unsupported allegations’. What can’t be denied is the Cat’s impact.

Homemade ‘BEWARE THE CAT’ t-shirts were spotted at Crufts, and according to screenshot analytics provided by the Cat, their posts receive upwards of three million views a month. Feedback is apparently largely positive. ‘The only negativity we receive is from the guilty,’ the Cat says. ‘No one is out of our reach.’

For some, gossiping about a secret world of criminality and clandestine operations deep within dog showing is a thrilling way to spend your days – or at least a few hours ring-side. But for others, like our anonymous exhibitor, the whole thing is completely embarrassing. ‘The dog show world is comprised of grown-ups who didn’t mentally leave secondary school. It’s a soap opera, and every couple of weeks I check back in to see what mad shit I’ve been missing.’

Confident, the Cat has taken to leaving calling cards at dog shows to mark their presence – small kittens stuck to walls in spots such as the gents’ toilets. When asked whether this move to the real world might expose their true identity, the Cat makes a rare switch to first person: ‘I don’t worry about it at all.’

George Francis Lee is a freelance feature writer from the north of England. He is co-founder of STAT Magazine.

‘Scorting Times

One of the things we love publishing most in the magazine are sizzling insider pieces. This issue is absolutely no exception. Issue 23 contains one of our most incredible insider pieces yet: this piece from a luxury escort working in the middle of central London. It’s a rollicking read, and currently free.

Best of the Borst

Among the superlative pieces in Issue 23 is a piece by Georgia Brown which takes us into the heart of Britain’s Borstal system for young offenders. Part personal essay, part social commentary this really is one of the jewels in the crown of our latest issue – it’s currently available to read now for free online so, if you want to whet your appetite then look no further.

The Year of the Rat

All the way back in December 2020, we published our very first investigation, as Harry Shukman went undercover and spoke to the sick and sad peddlers of conversion therapy.

On a much grander scale, Harry has spent a year pretending to be a far-right activist, and infiltrated a series of extremist networks. Do read the extended excerpt from his upcoming book above. It’s journalism of the highest order.

Rambo: Full Blood

There are few better newsletters than Sunday Sauce, the weekly offering from James Ramsden, the perfect culinary mail-out for those of you looking to make the most of your weekend. There’s even 20 percent off with the code SPRING20 – an homage to our own deal. Do sign up.

In Case You Missed It

The writer of a true crime book on the Luxton murders of the ‘70s worries he got it wrong.

The drones running inspections on American sewers.

The lads finally have their answer to the Stanley Cup: it’s a beer can. In camo.

Cheaper Oasis tickets? The Gallaghers reunite at the Mildmay Club.

Port Talbot’s Banksy is getting its own play, but Banksy’s piece is absent.

The hunt for Kardashian’s diamond thieves nears an end, as the accused face their trial.

And Finally…

There are certain YouTube videos that we just keep going back to. Our comfort watches, if you will. One of them, absolutely perfect for the post-Easter extended hangover and the turn towards the summer, is the extended oeuvre of Keith Floyd. It doesn’t need repeating here that Floyd genuinely changed the entire face and feel of food television, but he did. Simply bask, as the weather stays beaut, in the glorious presence of a man who is thoroughly enjoying himself. There are so many Floyd hits – from him being hectored by a furious woman over an ill-constructed omelette in France to the scene on the night train through the South African Veld, where a visibly pissed Keith tries to make a cocktail from raspberries, cream and the contents of the train’s drinks trolley.

We leave you with this, from Floyd’s Spanish odyssey, where he spends time in the Basque country and is totally bemused by its all-male cooking clubs, not because they are all male but because the gentlemen involved seem baffled by his suggestion that they should really just be – like Keith’s entire career – a front for getting joyously pissed. Enjoy.

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That’s it for this week. We anticipate a trawler-net of photos of the magazine ‘out in the wild’. Do remember to buy a magazine or a map or a tote bag if you’ve enjoyed this newsletter. If you have any enquiries about an order, please direct them to support@the-fence.com. For the 248 years between 1311 and 1549, Lincoln Cathedral was the tallest building in the world. Enjoy the lovely weather.

All the best,

TF