Off The Fence: The Boomies

And Some Papacy Steez and Bedfordshire's Most Depressing House

Dear Readers,

Good afternoon, and welcome to Off The Fence, a newsletter that is now hosted on Substack. We were pleasantly surprised that some of you donated some funds last week – that’s very generous of you. And we would like it if more of you did that. It would make a real difference to us, especially as we’re paying for printers and lawyers and contributors all at the same time. If you’d like to, making a donation will mean that we can keep our magazine at an approachable sum and also keep this newsletter free-to-air. So if you’re a fan of our work, and you’d like to support us, please do think about giving some money today in the link below. 

Now, we’ve spent a bit of time on this cute investigation we lead with today, and there are some bits about the AI revolution and the most depressing video you’ll ever see. 

Cut A Hack Some Slack

Boomers may be a slightly irritating American neologism, but it’s a neat way of describing the generation born between 1949 and 1965 – those men and women who enjoy the benefits of a free education and an extensive buy-to-let portfolio. We joke, of course. As a publication exclusively staffed by Millennials, we thought it would be worth our time to put down our cruel words and ironic shields and ask our fellow youngsters: who is the kindliest Boomer hack you’ve ever worked with? Who’s the nicest oldster on Fleet Street?

Over two weeks, we’ve received over 40 nominations from staffers at every major UK publication, and we’ve got a runaway winner and a whole host of heart-warming stories, but before you think we’ve come over all soppy, we did also ask for some funny stories about Boomers and their relationship with technology. And we’ve got some classics.

Roger Alton, the former editor of The Independent, was known to appear behind his young staffers and inquire of them ‘what is happening on the world wide web today?’ in a bid to keep hip and with it, while Roger Boyes (Roger is a great boomer name) doesn’t know how to use word count on Microsoft Word – and apparently will take an educated guess as to how many words he has written (in the News Corp canteen, Boyes was witnessed throwing his plate and cutlery in the bin as he couldn’t find a place to stow them.)

Fence favourite, Peter Hitchens, is an adept user of Twitter, but also a somewhat zealous user of DMGT resources, as one source relays.

‘Peter printed out the entire Sue Gray report on an MoS printer, and then proceeded to read it page by page at a cabinet he had fashioned into a lectern beside the office kitchen.’

There are some stories that we’ve had to anonymise, like the Paris correspondent for a major daily newspaper who once said ‘we don’t have Google in France’, or the very famous editor-in-chief who couldn’t work out how to turn off his phone during conferences, and whenever it would then ring, the furious editor would bellow at it as he tried to silence it, and then having done so, the conference would then restart, only for the phone to ring again, and the infuriated editor would then issue a roar ‘like a bison that just been shot, staggering across the plain.’

We couldn’t do this piece without mentioning a certain philosemitic provocateur and their struggles to collaborate with younger colleagues

‘Julie Burchill is a pain in the arse. She doesn’t have a phone, so she is impossible to reach if she’s not at her laptop. I did a podcast with her once, she couldn’t work Zoom, and when she worked it out – after days of trying – her internet connection was so bad that the podcast was THE worst quality I’ve ever heard. It would cut out and then she would just start shouting about how much she used to love cocaine.’

After that line, it’s time to get into it – we’re going to list everyone we’ve had votes for. There was one vote each for:

Graham Paterson, Sarah Crompton, Gary Gibbon, ‘the sort of perfect gentleman you think ceased to exist around the time of Chatterley ban’, Rosie Boycott, Rebecca English, George Parker, Ian Cobain, Alan Rusbridger, Catriona Stewart, Xan Smiley ‘who would send interminably long emails about grammar but was extremely charming’, Robbie Millen, Melanie McDonagh ‘despite her fire and brimstone writing’, Simon Heffer, ‘underneath his catty veneer he is an extremely generous man’, Matthew Parris – and there was another unexpected vote for James Brown, the former editor of Loaded, who has ‘an actual interest in developing and working with younger writers. He took me out to lunch at a kebab shop in Paddington and told me about how he got sacked from GQ for putting the Nazis in the style icons of the 20th century.’

Five separate journalists scored multiple votes. In joint fifth place, there is former Private Eye deputy editor, Francis Wheen, who moved one young hack to say ‘Wheen. Decency, class, charm. Erudition. We will never see his like again.’ 

We were pleased as punch that Peter Hitchens made the list – his IRL courtesy and decency offsets his rather pugnacious online profile, and he’s a supportive and kind presence in Northcliffe House, where he spots stories for younger hacks, and is an engaged member of the newsroom.

In the bronze medal position is Joseph Harker, the Guardian’s senior editor for diversity, who is still in touch with many of his former charges 20 years later.

‘He runs the positive action work experience scheme and is such a nice man. The scheme has been running since 2000, and he makes a personal effort to keep in touch with everyone who has done it, sharing job opportunities etc. He seems to take personal joy in it when people he's mentored succeeded.’

And the good people of York Way have taken second place, with interview king, Simon Hattenstone, scoring five votes. A ‘warm, kind, funny, all-round lovely man’ who has been known to wear a fur coat and a string vest in the office, the Mancunian organises collections for canteen staff’s children, and will send extensive and generous emails to younger journalists whose pieces he has enjoyed. What a nice man!

Simon Hattenstone, a lovely Boomer

But there is a truer gentleman ahead, as our winner won by a chunky margin of some four votes. Mick Brown of the Daily Telegraph is the ‘chicest man in the game’, ‘the Bill Nighy of the newsroom’, ‘calm and pleasant’, who takes the time to school young journalists in the tools of the trade, and gives them support when they need it most: ‘I was feeling quite stifled at work and, without me ever bringing it up, Mick Brown came up to me to ask how I was doing and to mention he had noticed I was writing less. Gave me the motivation I needed to make some big life choices.’

Mick Brown, the best Boomer of them all

Mick’s bonhomie extends outside normal office parameters. ‘He found out I’d broken up with a girlfriend with whom I’d been living. He messaged me and said he has a flat I could live in.’ With acts of supreme generosity like that, we can’t think of a worthier winner than Mick. Congratulations to everyone nominated, though we should highlight that quite a few young journalists were unable to think of someone to vote for, with one friend of The Fence replying ‘I haven’t worked with any nice Boomer hacks, but I am planning on being one.’

AInfallible

The Papacy has often found itself at the unlikely forefront of change through history and this week adds a new notch in the form of being the subject of the first viral AI image hoax. This doctored picture of Pope Francis seemingly in a puffer jacket has made a splash online, with endless comments on Papal style, articles on the influence AI will now have over our perceptions of reality etc etc. We are more interested in the possible fashion fallout: after all Francis’s predecessor was famed for his love of clothing, perhaps the most iconique being his quilted white jacket he wore on meeting his successor. Benedict’s fashion sense received this breathless praise from the self styled ‘Queen Sloane’, the former MP’s assistant who now describes himself as being at ‘the coalface of gayness’, Henry Conway. 

Run, Gunther, Run!

Over the last few months we’ve been getting increasingly obsessed with this guy right here: Gunther Fehlinger, a 54 year old Europhile from Linz, Austria who posts, on average, about two-dozen selfies every single day on what appears to be a continual FBPE rally across Europe. Next to flags, outside offices, at sparsely populated rallies, Gunther is there always, smiling or frowning (depending on context) while extolling the virtues of continental federalism, often tagging official government accounts in his posts to demand in charmingly clunky terms that they show more support for NATO, the EU, and the international rules-based order. 

So far, so harmless. Anyway, Gunther’s benign if somewhat deranged method of posting has landed him in hot water with a group of people you really don’t want to be angering en masse: Serbian nationalists. After taking a solo trip to Belgrade, Gunther photographed himself at the Eternal Flame, a tribute to the victims of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999, and demanded that Serbia recognise Kosovo, accept their crimes and replace the flame with a statue of Madeleine Albright. To which, he is now being mobbed, doxxed and harassed by thousands of angry Serbs, who have put a bounty on his head, and started squatting outside of his apartment in Austria. 

Gunther, however, is undeterred, and is now posting and boasting from Pristina: drinking coffee, taking selfies, and laughing in the face of his new and powerful enemies. All we can say is that we wish him the best of luck, and we will keep you posted on developments over the next few weeks. 

You’re Balenciaga, Harry 

The Vatican isn’t the only draughty hall to be abuzz with fashionista feeling courtesy of AI wizardry this week. We leave this exceptional piece of posting, when Balenciaga came to Hogwarts, to speak for itself. 

In Case You Missed It

What would it take you to live in a five bedroom house/dog grooming studio situated directly on the A5? Let us rephrase that: would it take a full length parody of the theme from Neverending Story?  

Kara Kennedy on breasts for The Spectator

For The Verge, Ian Frisch tells a twisty tale of Tinder car theft.

Stereogum’s Brett McCabe just can’t get enough of LA’s duelling Depeche Mode cover bands.

Imogen West-Knights profiles the world’s best columnist, Adrian Chiles, for Slate.

And Finally

In the best of all possible worlds, all of us here at The Fence would prefer to ignore Dr Jordan B Peterson, the lobster-discerning charlatan, Kermit-ruining nerd and all-round massive freak, whose work has spent the past few years rebranding Jungian psychology as a sort of astrology for male podcasters. Since his contributions to the discourse are usually not worth the energy it takes to mock them, we’ve observed a dignified silence since he returned to the public sphere (after, allegedly, landing himself in hospital, allegedly, due to the unforeseen consequences of, allegedly, eating nothing but beef and Benzedrine).

We maintained this vow of silence when he did a piece to camera attacking ‘woke moralists’ like he was the baddie in a poorly translated Japanese RPG. We held our tongues when he railed against recycling notices in toilets, and even when he retweeted fetish porn which he took to be genuine footage of Chinese prisoners being milked for their semen.    

But then, alas, we were sent this startling clip of the good Doctor having one of his trademark tear-filled breakdowns over the concept of… live music, generally. It’s a striking, bravura medley of all of Peterson’s most irritating tics, not least his addiction to wielding faux-profundity and obscurantism to describe the everyday concepts he is clearly discovering, in advanced middle age, for the first time. Or his famed inability to talk about anything without getting either so sad or angry that he cries.

Intercut with footage of the band in question, Peterson’s glassy eyed paean to their talents sits beautifully at odds with their actual music, which appears to be some of the most mediocre ever unleashed in a venue that sells curly fries. While we would happily go the rest of our lives without seeing or hearing from JBP again, we can’t deny our delight at seeing him close to weeping as he describes the majesty and transcendence of their music, which is basically the rights-free mp3 Burger King’s ad department grab for  when head office sticks a new condiment on the flame-grilled Whopper. Watch it, and weep.

docnoir @docnoir_

jordan peterson describing his discovery of live music is the most unhinged thing i've seen from him yet. and also the funniest

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That’s it for this week, and if you’re a nice Boomer hack, or even if you’re not a nice Boomer hack, we hope you enjoyed that burst of targeted niceness so much you’d like to chuck us a few quid – and we look forward to joining you next week.

All the best,

TF