Off The Fence: Issue 18 Is Here
The day has come
Dear Readers,
Good afternoon, and we are delighted to join you again, twice in a week, yes, but Issue 18 has arrived today and we couldn’t be more excited about it. Now, subscriber copies are being sent out next Monday, and will be with you on Wednesday, inshallah.
Here is the cover, drawn by the legendary Davey Jones. It’s Issue 18, and it’s our grand coming of age.
It’s on sale for only £7.50 – it’s not in the shops till next week so you can beat the crush here.
Today we’ve got some bits on Shane McGowan, James Dyson and Nathan Fielder, but first we’re going to tell you a bit more about Issue 18.
Our Birthday Bash
Within Issue 18, we have assembled our strongest line-up yet, and permit us to run through the whole team sheet here. We’ve got Booker Prize winner, John Banville, with a gorgeous reverie on his first love in County Wexford; the incomparably brilliant Geoff Dyer questions whether we ever do ‘come of age’; Michael Gillard, the country’s leading investigative journalist, tells a tale of Soho vice at the Windmill Theatre; Nesrine Malik, a star columnist at the Guardian, takes a sideways glance at her fellow elderly millennials and Fiona Mozley, who was nominated for the Booker Prize for her debut novel, remembers a séance where she summoned the spirit of Oscar Wilde (allegedly).
Elsewhere, Patrick Galbraith takes an uncomfortable look at a beloved teacher who committed suicide; Jimmy McIntosh tries – and fails – to take a bunch of new media sad lads for a night out at The Standard Hotel; Roísín Lanigan channels the spirit of Emily Ratajkowski as a chic young divorcée; Joe Bishop takes a trip to the first Japanese maid café in London; Clive Martin rolls back the years in Camden markets; Ian Martin, the co-writer of Veep and The Death of Stalin, celebrates the glory years of 1968-1971; Ed Cumming returns for another free lunch and we’ve got a wonderful short story from Madeleine Brettingham, who has written for Have I Got News for You and That Mitchell and Webb Look.
It’s a real pleasure to have Hussein Kesvani in our pages, and with a dispatch from the dogging scene in suburban Kent, too. William Clarke has done another perfect little quiz for us and Robbie Armstrong delves into the myth of the Catman of Greenock. There are lots of little pieces from the editorial team as well. We pride ourselves on making space for young writers, and we’re delighted to have pieces from Louis Elton, Miles Rebeiro, Rosie Hewitson, Harvey James and Eve Webster.
Davey Jones’ cover is an all-time great, and we’ve also got illustrations by Natalya Lobanova, Paul Cox and Miki Lowe, all overseen by Mathias Clottu as art director.
We do genuinely feel that we’ve made something pretty special here, and the magazine is thriving thanks to your support as readers. If you haven’t yet done so, you really should subscribe, so we can keep flourishing.
Along the Archway Road
As Shane MacGowan’s funeral is taking place this very afternoon, there are remembrances of his time in London, specifically at the Highgate pub, The Boogaloo, where he was a fixture for much of the noughties, owing to his near-lifelong friendship with the publican, Gerry O’Boyle. The Boogaloo has lost some of its tawdry glamour – it recently played host to Loaded editor James Brown’s book launch, but fascinatingly enough, in its previous incarnation as The Shepherds, it was Simon Pegg and Nick Frost’s local, and the duo based ‘The Winchester’ – the pub at the heart of the story of Shaun of the Dead on their many, many evenings at the Shepherds (Confusingly enough, they took the name ‘The Winchester’ from a pub further down the Archway Road, which reopened last year). You can read all about it here.
The House of Mirth
As mentioned last week, we’ve got a very special newsletter dropping next Tuesday, in which we’ve asked contributors, friends and people in the public eye a question: ‘what is the funniest thing you’ve seen all year’. We’d love to have your contributions in there – it could be a film, play, meme, tweet, book or just something ridiculous that happened in front of your very eyes.
We’ve had quite a few contributions so far, and there is space for a few more, so send through an email to editorial@the-fence.com with your entry but please do so by Sunday evening at the very latest. If you want some inspiration, here’s a choice anecdote from Rowan Hunter.
Who’s Got the Bag(less vacuums)?
Sir James Dyson’s recent libel loss against the Daily Mirror reminded us of the truly vast glasshouse he has created in rural Lincolnshire, the scale of which you can divine here. The tycoon is attempting – and succeeding – to extend the British fruit season, all from fields just north of Boston. We may have mentioned it before, this does seem like a story that a major broadcaster should be covering: Brexit Britain; secretive billionaires and high tech. Will someone step up the plate?
Always Coca-Cola
We’ve dug up the last few remaining ‘Soho Map of Cokes’ from the vaults – there are now only four of them left. They really do look beautiful (and there’s a full gallery to enjoy here), but take a look at this snap we took yesterday with the panettones at I Camisa.
They’re signed by the artist, Paul Cox, and are an absolute steal at £40 – we should really be charging triple. Scroll down to the bottom of the shop page to score one.
Pouring One out for McGlynn's
Because it’s a Friday, and it’s silly season, we couldn’t resist publishing Jimmy McIntosh’s new column, where he led a motley crew on a night out in King’s Cross, which he reckons to be the best place in London to have a drink. The night didn’t progress as planned – but it was memorable nevertheless, and as we’ve said before, there are few people who write as vividly about contemporary London life as Jimmy. It’s in front of the paywall till tomorrow morning.
On That Caspar David Friedrich Tip
Would you believe it but we’ve still got a couple of articles from Issue 16 and 17 to put online! We’ve been doling them out carefully, and this is a particularly lovely piece from Joe Zadeh, who has moved back home to the north of England, where he has learned to love the rhythms of the natural world. It’s a beautiful piece.
Pseudodoxia Epidemica
To Shoreditch, and the new fish restaurant Pearly Queen, where Scottish chef Tom Brown has erected a giant post-impressionist portrait of himself that stares at you while you eat.
It’s next to a portrait of Anthony Bourdain in the same style, and a pink neon sign with the legend ‘the world is yours’ – quite the confused vibe. What other restaurants in London are bogging it on the interiors front? Do let us know…
In Case You Missed It
Imogen West-Knights astonishes with the most dramatic chimpanzee breakout of the year.
Angelica Jade Bastién on the fake intimacy of Renaissance, and its “remote star”, Beyoncé
ProPublica’s Seth Freed Wessler with a harrowing document of the horrors at America’s border
An oral history of an infamous reality television moment.
Colin Burrow reviews Zadie Smith’s latest novel, The Fraud.
And Finally
It’s very much been Nathan Fielder’s year, to use a rather hoary journalistic cliché. If you haven’t seen The Rehearsal yet, you really need to remedy that immediately. It’s great to see someone approach comedy with genuine playfulness and innovation, and also good to see Americans being funny again (funny on purpose again). Fielder’s latest satire, The Curse, is just as clever and ludic, and we commend it to you wholeheartedly. Alongside his co-star Emma Stone, he made a sublimely silly appearance on the Jimmy Kimmel show recently, and this could very well be the first time we’ve recommended a clip from a late night chat show host, but Fielder is breathing life back into a whole realm of formats.
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That’s it for this week: genuinely. We’ll be back on Tuesday with the ‘funniest thing of the year’ special, and there’ll be a conventional newsletter on Friday. And we’ll be publishing lots of articles in the meantime. If you’d like to speak to us about an order, please email subscriptions@the-fence.com – and have a lovely weekend.
All the best,
TF
Wow believe the hype, as good, if not better, than they say