Off The Fence: Garrick on the Streets of London
And a lovely little bird.
Dear Readers,
Good afternoon and welcome back to Off The Fence, the newsletter of its age. We’re joining you from Soho again this week, now that Issue 19 is signed, sealed and delivered to our Baltic printmen – keep your eyes peeled for updates and a cover reveal in the weeks to come, but for now, be very, very excited.
You might be thinking at this time, ‘god, there’s all these people out there who’ll be getting a sparkling copy of The Fence to their door in a month’s time – what about me?’ Well, you can outdo those lucky folk and get a copy of the last issue on your doormat by this time next week, then the next issue, and the three after that, for just thirty quid. Hit the button below and get your sweet print fix for the next twelve months.
Onto the action. This week, we’ve got West End monstrosities, a media shootout in clubland, some more where-were-yous from our wonderful readers, and a star turn from an Antipodean crow. But right up top, a final bit on Kate.
Bench, Press
Last week’s announcement by the Princess of Wales that she is undergoing cancer treatment sent a shockwave through the media class. Along with the well wishes and sympathies – which we, too, share and shall here emphasise – there was another note sounding in the distance. The sense, perhaps, of lights coming on at the end of the orgy, and a general feeling that everyone should be ashamed of themselves. In some cases, this subtext was just, well, text, as in headlines from the NYT to the Atlantic blaring that you, not they, should feel very ashamed about all this.
There are layers to this, of course. On the one hand, a mother of three has gone on record about her cancer diagnosis and it seems reasonable to conclude she’s had to do so, at least partly, due to an overwhelming swell of interest in her whereabouts, which made her silence untenable. It’s also true that no small part of this ‘interest’ was, in and of itself, quite ghoulish and intrusive. All of which is indeed pretty grim.
Viewed from the 2027 Media Studies Module B, A-Level Paper 1 of it all, it’s fascinating for other reasons. Possibly for the first time in royal history, this story was led, not by the established press, but the social media hoi polloi, engaged in a byzantine crowdsourced sleuth op/comedy battle that forced a response first from the national press and then the royals themselves. The tabloids’ traditional monopoly of royal-bothering – and, we might presume, occasional behind-closed-doors agreements that no bothering shall occur – was well and truly shattered, and both their silence, and that of the Palace firm, served only to throw more chum into the water.
Interest in royals is almost entirely a product of press-palace finagling, often involving a mutual trading of secrets for softballs, and simpering for scandals, which has since time immemorial kept the redtops in filthy lucre and the Palace at the forefront of British life. Even now, the Royals occupy a unique place in British culture, both heralded, and scrutinised, to a greater degree than any politician, celebrity or public figure. As such, everything any of us knows about the House of Windsor has been passed down in a chain of mediated morsels and traded tattle, cut and packaged as individual episodes of a centuries-long soap opera. One therefore detects some degree of richness in a press happy to decry the 1,456,329th example of intrusion into royal family life, upon the first occasion for which they themselves might not be primarily responsible.
If, as those writing horrified polemics against the online gumshoes in our midst would have us believe, the UK public feels grossly entitled to every detail of the private lives, public outings and medical histories of these poor people, one must therefore ask: whoever gave them that idea?
The Clue’s In The Name
There is something very much ‘off’ with a lot of these cutesy videos depicting a human and an unlikely animal forming an unlikely friendship. More often than not, it feels rehearsed, staged for the algorithm, but this particular clip, capturing the lovely bond between a Danish toddler and a crow called Russell really is heart-warming stuff, and worthy of your attention.
Panic! At The Garrick
Earlier this month, when delivering a lecture at City University, the former Guardian writer Gary Younge said that British journalism risked becoming so terminally out of touch with the country that it sometimes read as ‘the internal memos of the upper class’.
A portentous statement, you might say, as we enter the eighth day of reaction and discourse to the Guardian’s investigation into the Garrick Club, a storied private members’ club in central London with 1,500 members, mostly actors and lawyers, and all men. The series of pieces published by the Guardian revealed no malpractice or bad behaviour within the Garrick’s walls, but listed members of the club (albeit not all of those members).
The investigation has been conducted by Amelia Gentleman, who, as the wife of Jo Johnson, can use the title Lady Johnson of Marylebone. Thanks to the diligence of Popbitch, it’s been revealed that Amelia’s father-in-law, Stanley Johnson, is a member of the Garrick, and that the former editor of the Guardian, Alan Rusbridger, resigned his membership because one of his nominees, Lord Myners, was blackballed, and not because he was exercised about women joining as members.
For many outsiders, this is yet an example of wet liberal hypocrisy. Some Guardian insiders are bemused that their publication has devoted so much attention to the goings-on at a private members’ club, with one York Way staffer telling us ‘it’s pretty obvious that the Garrick is a weak and unimportant institution… otherwise Kath Viner [Guardian editor] wouldn’t be sparring with it.’
Of course, there is a much more powerful private members’ club in London, where politicians openly court donors, and where networking is conducted brazenly. But it seems it’s a little bit harder to kick down the door of 5 Hertford Street.
An Evening With Gary Lineker
A question: do you know anyone who has been to the theatre recently? It’s so expensive and so often so interminable, which is a state of affairs we do not welcome, so a plan has been concocted to save the jewel in London’s cultural crown. Behold, our plan to revive the West End with a cavalcade of plays and musicals that audiences will be lining up around the block to see. The box office is open right here.
Our Neighbours in Soho
A modest little meal can set you back £60 round by our offices. Even the tiny places, like the permaqueued smash-burger joint Supernova, will eat the best part of a pony for a burger, chips and Coke. If you want a drink with your friends then god help you, pints are through the roof and aren’t coming back down again. So for the best of London’s most salubrious corner, just buy a subscription to The Fence instead. Digital subs start at £19.99 for all our content, print and online, all year long – it’s the one Soho deal you won’t feel shortchanged by.
In Case You Missed It
Sam Knight with the thinkpiece of the week on 14 years of Britain under Tory rule.
Arif Hasan tells the strange, muddled tale of The Draft Network, the zesty NFL media project that went from rags to riches to rags in six years.
Meg Miller pens a fascinating, moving account of olfactory reminiscence, through her mother’s experience with Alzheimers, for DIRT.
The Economist goes into the Marks & Spencer Archive, with an un-bylined piece we’d recommend for its lede alone.
They don’t make tailors like Martin Greenfield any more, and they rarely make NYT obituaries like his either.
And Finally
We do so hate to do ourselves out of a job, but last week’s request for ‘people finding out things on camera’ furnished us with so many stone cold bangers, we’d be remiss not to give ourselves the day off and offer thanks to our beautiful and learned readers for this bumper crop.
Shout out to reader Michael G for recommending the kerfuffle caused in the Celebrity Big Brother house when David Bowie died.
And to Stephen M for reminding us of Donald Trump’s stirring, garbled, Tiny Dancer-backed elegy for Ruth Bader Ginsburg on the occasion of her passing.
And to Dara O, for putting us back in mind of the thigh squeeze heard round the world, Thierry Henry getting handsy with Jamie Carragher on the news that Brendan Rodgers had been sacked by Liverpool.
But our more sincere commendations must go to Pamie, who sent us not one, not two, but three excellent suggestions; first, some friends playing cards while news of Diana's crash unfolds; Korean cultural omni-titans BTS having their future crushed before their eyes as their US tour is cancelled due to Covid, and last but not least, to bring it all back around to the James Cameron clip which started this whole hunt, this footage of a 16-year-old Cristiano Ronaldo welcoming a news crew into his youth team digs… on September 11, 2001.
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There we have it, another Tuesletter delivered in a spirited and capable fashion. As always, if you’ve got any sort of query for us re: shipping, digital stuff and the like, support@the-fence.com is the destination for you. Should you want to hit us with a pitch or a tidbit or just a nice hello, all emails sent to editorial@the-fence.com are lovingly received – even the abusive ones. Until next week, we must bid you adieu.
All the best,
TF