catfishing.net #698 - 9/10 🎉 🐈🐈🐈🐈🐈 🐈🐈🐈🐟🐈

Memorable in a kind of sums-me-up way – I asked my parents to take me to Croydon IKEA for my 12th birthday. We didn’t need to get anything, don’t even remember what we bought (pillows, a suitcase maybe?) but what a delight to wend through the showrooms and market halls. Would do again

For Issue 28's Fencepost, we want to know about your most memorable birthday: it could be for good reasons, or it could be more mortifying ones: either way, let us know in the comments below.

My experience of seeing them both in person is that their heads are remarkably similar in shape and size

Quick they put my new column up without a paywall for a few hours and I will live to regret posting this the-fence.com/how-do-you-k...

Their job is to make sure people don’t

it’s only an echo chamber when it’s the left. when it’s the right they call it some bullshit like the Agora or the Town Square

🚨My first @thefence.bsky.social investigation reveals how an enigmatic Greco-Russian billionaire is transporting billions of dollars’ worth of sanctioned Russian oil and gas to Europe and beyond.🚨 Read "Barrels of Black Gold" below! thefence.substack.com/p/off-the-fe...

Met a curlew in Thamesmead

The best piece of writing about wanking into a cup ever published, and that's a promise. Yoel Noorali had a date with a room, and gave us the dispatch. (Not literally.) www.the-fence.com/the-miracle-...

No way does that get top billing

Really happy with how this illustration turned out. Would be even happier if you took the chance to subscribe to the mag!

The best deal in magazines is even better for a few spare moments - run don't walk to rob us blind!

'In the week after our book, The Pub, is released, it's great to see the Daily Telegraph join us in lauding that great British institution... and in such a distinctive style too.

Time to re-up our 2021 investigation into the figure that is Hilary Lawson, the property magnate and 'philosopher' behind HowTheLightGetsIn www.the-fence.com/the-ideas-man/

A treat from our new book, THE PUB. We sent @clive_mart1n deep into the Cotswolds, long before the arrival of the Vances, to measure up the pubs and people currently cluttering the countryside. He was not a fan. www.the-fence.com/you-can-ring...

I drew some roses on my lunch break! Anyway, get your dating mishaps in – we’ve got some good ones already.

This is a great article. What are those proteins up to!

An absolute punch in the gut for anyone, an additional smack around the face for someone who worked as a graphic designer/frontend developer in Berlin & Lisbon in 2016–17 (me). 5*

“LOTS OF LOVE AND SEXY KISSES” – players just don’t write columns like this anymore

This is a good one. It’ll make you look up the price of some jackets. I can’t afford the jackets.

Pub?

LONGFORM LEGENDS: a callout just for you. The Fence is looking for spectacular features – and we’re willing to pay up to four figures for your next bit of narrative non-fiction. If you’ve got a twisty, thoughtful multi-act magazine piece up your sleeve, let us know at [email protected]

From Luther Blissett to Harry Potter. From Dada to the Isle of Dogs. @thefence.bsky.social got Thomas Peermohamed Lambert to trace the ley lines of the London Psychogeographical Association, Britain’s most legendary ‘art terrorists’. www.the-fence.com/london-psych...

From Luther Blissett to Harry Potter, Dada to the Isle of Dogs, Thomas Peermohamed Lambert traces the ley lines of the London Psychogeographical Association, Britain’s most legendary ‘art terrorists’. www.the-fence.com/london-psych...

Advert by The Brewers' Society from 1954

Best bit of football writing I’ve read in a while ⚽

On what is a really difficult day, here are some resources for our trans friends and allies. Solidarity 💜 goodlawproject.org/resource/sup...

Seashell Flowers, Max Ernst (1929)

Our greatest ever issue has landed. The Fence #23 comes with spanking new features from Emma Magnus, Róisín Lanigan, Peter Carlyon, Georgia Brown, Jimmy McIntosh, Ciaran Thrapar, Katie Lewis and myself. Fiction from Leo Robson and fabulous cover and illustrations from the wondrous Ed Steed! BUY IT!

Issue 23 Is Here 🦈 With work from @emmafmagnus.bsky.social, @drblacklock.bsky.social, @jimmymcintosh.bsky.social, @seamas.bsky.social, @roisinlanigan.bsky.social, @louisstaples.bsky.social, @dwhitehouse.bsky.social, @williamasclarke.bsky.social & more www.the-fence.com/shop/

'I have seen landmine injuries from years ago. I have seen men with 100 cigarette burns on their body; women who were separated from their husbands crossing Libya and can now barely speak of it.' An anonymous dispatch from a clinical lead in an asylum hotel. www.the-fence.com/hotel-britan...

Very excited to have illustrations in this!

Evil bollocks as ever from Labour’s most committed pro-misery activist: a) Are those ‘better paid jobs’... vacant? b) Aren’t mental health problems overdiagnosed (Wes)? c) If mental health support is so essential, why slash PIP for mental health support? d) “If you can work” What if you can’t?

There was an especially egregious labour guy in the papers yesterday saying to keep out the far right they need to crack down on migrants, foreign aid and welfare claimants and.. I'm unclear from this why he feels keeping out the far right is necessary

Anyone got any newish literary fiction I should read

a regular bugbear of mine - when something goes over budget on costs by 50% it's the end of the world, but you can underestimate the benefits massively and people treat it like a success story. Crossrail was arguably built 20 years too late because of these errors

Our sale is about to run out - but we only have a handful of bundles left. If you sign up on our print and digital plan, you'll get a tote bag, Issue 18, Issue 19, Issue 21 and Issue 22 for free. But move quickly, as we only have five of these deals left... www.the-fence.com/shop/

when someone tells you they are an autodidact, a fun game is saying "actually I don't think it's pronounced like that"

Illustrations I’ve done recently for @thefence.bsky.social: 1. A Myra in makeup for Bethany Elliott’s piece on the people who aren’t serial killers – they just play them on TV: www.the-fence.com/psychopaths-...

Turned on the United game at 2-0 for a lovely Saturday afternoon hatewatch and now they’ve ruined it

Finally gave myself a morning to read @rsmythfreelance.bsky.social’s An Indifference of Birds. A real pleasure, a temporal-spatial panorama of things things I’ve always loved about birds and things I never knew. Recommended to bird people and people who should be (i.e. everyone)

I’ve been admiring pictures of Corbusier’s Chandigarh for as long as I can remember – but it’s somehow even better in person:

When @garyiship.bsky.social was a lonely tweenager in rural Ireland, he took to his computer and found new galaxies of possibilities – on a Big Brother forum. www.the-fence.com/day-1509-in-...

The first 30 people to sign up for the print magazine (or print and digital) using the code FEB20 at the checkout will receive 20 percent off their subscription for the year. Hurry, hurry, hurry – these stocks won’t last long. www.the-fence.com/shop/

Drew a G-splitting robot to illustrate @roisinlanigan.bsky.social’s guide to whether your local pub’s gentrifying – or if you’re gentrifying it. See the whole thing on the @thefence.bsky.social insta: www.instagram.com/thefencemag/...

Quick everyone livetweet the news or else you’re complicit

Columba lualua

Really enjoyed seeing this sign – not only for the implication that you’re not allowed to flush anything you’ve done in there, but also for the fact that they’ve not typed it out on Word and printed it, they’ve got it from www.free-printable-signs.com and it’s a 656px bitmap

Always a pleasure when a new Fence hits the mat, I subscribed early on and never regret a “re-up”