The Fence

The Carbuncle Cup 2026

Presenting the Carbuncle Cup, crowning what we believe to be the very worst new building in Britain built in the past two years.

Issue 27 out now

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Phin Jennings

The Art of the Deal

Stuart Semple was on the verge of superstardom in the London art world. Now he is operating from a studio in Bournemouth. What happened?
Isabel Woodford

Who Keeps Atlantis off the Maps?

An evening among the stars of AI at the Natural History Museum.
Fonie Mitsopoulou

Dean Street Comedown

For years, The Groucho was the epicentre of London clubland, a veritable icon of Cool Britannia, but recent years have seen one troubling story after another land in the headlines.
Sophie Heawood

How Do You Know Liz Truss?

One of our star new columnists recalls a memorable encounter with a dashing young man.
The Fence

Our Cringe Century

Since the start of the millennium Britain has found new and exquisite ways to humiliate herself. Here, in order, are the most embarrassing moments.
Lotte Brundle

Six or Seven Under Lime Street

Any risk of a beer? A dispatch from the last unreformed industry in London.

The Pub out now

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Features

Features VIEW ALL →

Fonie Mitsopoulou

Dean Street Comedown

For years, The Groucho was the epicentre of London clubland, a veritable icon of Cool Britannia, but recent years have seen one troubling story after another land in the headlines.
Ian Trueger

Whining and Dining

Sometimes, everything must change so that things can stay the same.
The Fence

Rumours of Our Death

Forecasts of print’s demise have been around for as long as press barons have been buying ink by the barrel.
Tamlin Magee

Father of Life, Mystery of Mystery, His Name Chaos

The cosmic wandering of Michael Vaughan Magee, as relayed by his son.

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Facts

Facts VIEW ALL →

Isabel Woodford

Who Keeps Atlantis off the Maps?

An evening among the stars of AI at the Natural History Museum.
Sarah Haque

Burning Cash at the Wah Wah Hut

Can a band stay afloat on tour around Britain? In this economy?
Rory MacNeish

I Am Excited About the House of God

For most of his life, Tony Morris was a bookkeeper, quite content to be a failure. Now the Broomhill resident is an underground music sensation. Our writer meets a rockstar.
Jack Goulder

The Vampire Diaries

You might feel a sharp scratch with this piece

Issues SHOP →

  • 27
  • 26
  • 25
  • 24
  • 23
  • 22
  • 21
  • 20
  • 19
  • 18
How Do You Know Liz Truss? by Sophie Heawood
I Am a Meme, a Meme I Am by Laura Beveridge
Gaff by Tim MacGabhann
Dean Street Comedown by Fonie Mitsopoulou
Six or Seven Under Lime Street by Lotte Brundle
Burning Cash at the Wah Wah Hut by Sarah Haque
The Art of the Deal by Phin Jennings
Who Keeps Atlantis off the Maps? by Isabel Woodford
Lead Heads by John Banville
Rumours of Our Death by The Fence
All My Friends Are Famous by Chris Black
Singhs and Roundabouts by Sarah Haque
Whining and Dining by Ian Trueger
Cannonball! by Naomi Wood
Hideous Kinky by Dan Beaumont
I’m Going to Be Sacked for Shagging About by Matt Nida
When the Sleigh Bells Ring by Isobel Thompson
The Da Vinci of Halton Moor by Edward Platt
The Grogfather by Jimmy McIntosh
Et ITV2, Brute? by Snake Denton
The Albion Rooms by Katie Lewis
The Miracle of Childbirth by Yoel Noorali
Summa Cum Laude by Gary Grimes
Look What You Made Me Queue by Emma Magnus
The SEND School by Jack Beaumont
Love in a Hostile Environment by Clare Considine
Sugar Mummy by Eva Wiseman
The Man Who Invented Shoreditch by Will Buckley
The Tina Triangle by Bron Maher
Hotel Britannica by Anonymous
A Bit of Liquor Sauce by Jimmy McIntosh
Requiem for a Scene by Katie Lewis
The Boys by Leo Robson
Ersatz G.B. by Louis Staples
Hold the Phone by David Whitehouse
No Scrubs by William Rayfet Hunter
On Minge Lane by Emma Magnus
Borstal Boys by Georgia Brown
Roots Manoeuvres by Ciaran Thapar
Last Days of Soho by Francisco Garcia
Loving the Nineties by Miranda Sawyer
An Ugly Business by Olympia Campbell
Down at Daymer Bay by Clive Martin
The Kids Are Coming up from Behind by Drew Lustman
The Grantham Anthem by The Fence
In the Shadow of the Mountain by Natalie Berry
Day 1,509 in the Big Brother House by Gary Grimes
Off the Box by Stephen Smith
Splendide Mendax by Ralf Webb
The More They Feel, the More They Buy by Clive Martin
Over the Hill and Far Away by Lauren Bensted
A Load of Bollocks by Bron Maher
Down on the Farm by Claudia Cockerell
Icarus Also Flew by Ella Fox-Martens
The Buddha of Siberia by Miles Ellingham & Cormac Kehoe
A Memorable Meal by John Banville
A Hackney Story by Max Daly
War Games by Jake Warren
A Long Stretch by Anonymous
Something in the Water by Fiona Mozley
If You Can’t Beauchamp, Join Them by Margaret Mitchell
A Pint of Plane by Jimmy McIntosh
A Haunting in Shoreditch by Jordan Michelman
Bib Brother by Joe Bishop
End of a Sentence by Anonymous
The Princess and the Pitta by Róisín Lanigan
The White Whale by Orlando Whitfield
West End Confidential by Clive Martin
Among the Russians by Camilla Bell-Davies
Sling Voters by Bron Maher
Two Eds are Better than One by Ed Cumming
Bread and Circuses by The Fence
Something to Tell You by Sachin Kureishi
The Drugs Don’t Work by Margaret McCartney
A Cozzer Snout by Francisco Garcia
Absolutely Buzzing by Thomas Gorton
The Kid Stays out of the Picture by Anonymous
Burning with Pleasure by Sophie Elmhirst
Giving it the Big One by Clive Martin
Failure to Turn by Geoff Dyer
Kaiser Wilhelm’s Folly by Eve Webster
When One Grows Tired of Cyberdog by Clive Martin
Lunch for The Fence by Ed Cumming
You’re the One, Ellie Roebuck by Rosie Hewitson
Ghost ‘n’ the Machine by Fiona Mozley
Catman Scoop by Robbie Armstrong
Dog Day Afternoon by Hussein Kesvani
Looking for Bagley’s by Jimmy McIntosh
The WeHo Siege by Harvey James
Fiction

Fiction VIEW ALL →

Tim MacGabhann

Gaff

A short story that concerns a successful Millennial Irish author.
Naomi Wood

Cannonball!

A short story, focused on the film industry.
Eva Wiseman

Sugar Mummy

A short story about Annie, who’s taken on a different type of client.
Leo Robson

The Boys

An extract from our young author’s forthcoming novel.
  • Opinion
  • Food
  • Investigations
  • Culture
Geoff Dyer

Failure to Turn

The majordomo of literary non-fiction meditates upon his mortality, his ear hair, and his complicated feelings toward the oeuvre of Luca Guadagnino.
Nesrine Malik

Elder States, Man

To spend your life online is to live at one remove from reality – stand back too far, and you might find the years speeding by before your eyes.
Róisín Lanigan

The Chic Young Divorcée

Making a swift 180 down the aisle.
Harriet Rix

Lost in the Woods

Guy Shrubsole’s schemes have the potential to unleash havoc in the British countryside.
Richard Woodall

The View from Mount Olympus

2012’s Summer Olympics were a harbinger of the dreadful decade to come.
Fergus Butler-Gallie

At the Altar of Capital

How the Conservative Party lost their religion to the pull of the market.
Richard Smyth

The State of Nature

A classic treatise against men writing about the natural world.
Séamas O’Reilly

FBPE Fantasia

Unpicking the last four years of Remaniac delusions.
Joe Kennedy

Herdmindedness

Do good novelists have to write good novels?
Ian Trueger

Whining and Dining

Sometimes, everything must change so that things can stay the same.
Joe Bishop

You’re My Won-der-craaaaaawl

Bothering the cobbles of Manchester’s Northern Quarter.
Louis Staples

Ersatz G.B.

How do Lidl and Aldi get away with their imitation brands? We unpick the Cuthbert & Colin caterpillar wars.
James Ramsden

Getting the Band Back Together

In my fortieth year I was going to be in a band. And I was going to be unfuckable.
John Banville

A Memorable Meal

A world-famous novelist once went for lunch in an Umbrian tavern. He's remembered it for the past fifty years. He recounts it for us now.
Joe Bishop

Bib Brother

The Michelin Guide is arcane, self-serious and totally nonsensical. Even the chefs themselves can't workout the star system. And yet, we can't bear to break away from it.
Róisín Lanigan

The Princess and the Pitta

Truly the people’s café.
Margaret Mitchell

If You Can’t Beauchamp, Join Them

Learning the secret of eternal life from a Kensington pizzeria owner, Ciro Orsini, who at the age of 75, still dresses like a biker – and who still has an eye for the ladies.
Ian Trueger

The Feast of Saint John

A particular central London restaurant has enjoyed an offally good time over the past few years, wouldn't you agree?
Gary Grimes

Summa Cum Laude

Paying a visit to the country’s premier gay for pay university, run by Andy Lee, a straight-talking Dubliner.
John Phipps

Moscow-on-the-Heath

Since the end of World War Two, the Russian Trade Delegation in Highgate has befuddled locals and enraged successive British governments. What’s really going on inside the compound’s walls?
Clare Considine

Love in a Hostile Environment

All throughout the country, there are asylum seekers looking for connection, searching for something pure.
Miles Ellingham & Cormac Kehoe

Speaking in Small Tongues

An oil trader and an Old Etonian with a genius for PR, was Justin Welby the worst Archbishop of Canterbury since Thomas Arundel?
Max Daly

A Hackney Story

In the early 2000s, Clapton was the scene of a spate of public shootings, often conducted in broad daylight. The area earned the tabloid sobriquet ‘Murder Mile’. But who was behind the violence?
Emma Magnus

At Auntie’s Knee

Do you pay your TV license? Course you don't. Nobody does. Particularly not the license pay vigilantes fighting the good cause - we meet them.
Camilla Bell-Davies

Among the Russians

Around 30,0000 Russians fled to Serbia at the beginning of the Ukraine war. At a foggy banya in the middle of Belgrade, some of them tell us why.
Jordan Michelman

A Haunting in Shoreditch

The Ace of shades.
Clive Martin

West End Confidential

A tour of the filthy and glamorous capital.
Rory MacNeish

I Am Excited About the House of God

For most of his life, Tony Morris was a bookkeeper, quite content to be a failure. Now the Broomhill resident is an underground music sensation. Our writer meets a rockstar.
Fonie Mitsopoulou

Dean Street Comedown

For years, The Groucho was the epicentre of London clubland, a veritable icon of Cool Britannia, but recent years have seen one troubling story after another land in the headlines.
The Fence

Our Cringe Century

Since the start of the millennium Britain has found new and exquisite ways to humiliate herself. Here, in order, are the most embarrassing moments.
Sarah Haque

Singhs and Roundabouts

This writer is British and Bangladeshi. Somehow, she is also neither. She looks to the nation, and keeps score.
Jade Angeles Fitton

Short-Arseing Around the Picasso

Whatever happened to the coolest café in London?
Rory MacNeish

Sent to Coventry

Decca Mitford’s son, Ben Treuhaft, is a piano tuner with a purple-dyed goatee, living between Edinburgh and the West Midlands. But does he share his mother’s politics?
Katie Lewis

The Albion Rooms

What it’s like to fall in love with Pete Doherty.
Snake Denton

Et ITV2, Brute?

Looking for love in all the wrong islands.
Zara Meerza

I Want to Say Something

Digging into a grim obsession.
Etc.

Etc. VIEW ALL →

The Fence

Our Cringe Century

Since the start of the millennium Britain has found new and exquisite ways to humiliate herself. Here, in order, are the most embarrassing moments.
The Fence

The Ceremonial Counties of England… Ranked!

A deeply subjective guide to the shires, starting at the top and finishing, of course, at the bottom. We brook no arguments.
Antonia Bentel

Lust Orders

Desire has left the apps and gone to the boozer. A dispatch on how London's pubs have become the city's theatres of desire.
The Fence

Big in Japan

You wouldn’t have met their fans, they go to a different school. In Canada.

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Ian Trueger

Whining and Dining

Sometimes, everything must change so that things can stay the same.
Chris Black

All My Friends Are Famous

The mysterious covenant of the celebrity-civilian friendship pact.
The Fence

The Ceremonial Counties of England… Ranked!

A deeply subjective guide to the shires, starting at the top and finishing, of course, at the bottom. We brook no arguments.
The Fence

Rumours of Our Death

Forecasts of print’s demise have been around for as long as press barons have been buying ink by the barrel.
Jade Angeles Fitton

Short-Arseing Around the Picasso

Whatever happened to the coolest café in London?
John Banville

Lead Heads

The art of a good sub, by one of the world's best writers.