Mark Blacklock

@thefence.bsky.social goes to Provence to be next to Leicester Square (after Monet). I trust that this offering will not be out-pretentioned this month.

‘We’re terribly sorry’: South Park creators respond with humour to White House anger over naked Donald Trump Speaking at Comic-Con on Thursday, Trey Parker and Matt Stone revealed they spent days negotiating with producers to show the US president’s genitals

Stone added that the team decided to put eyes on the penis, which would make it a character: “If we put eyes on the penis, we won’t blur it. That was a whole conversation with grown-up people for four fucking days.”

www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio...

Thinking of doing a sandpaper cover for issue 3 of Offal - issue 2 available here - offaloffaloffal.com/publication in tribute to Jorn and Debord's Memoires. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%A9...

The SEND School Jack Beaumont is becoming a teacher, at a critical juncture for Britain’s most vulnerable students.

great piece - important read www.the-fence.com/the-send-sch... @thefence.bsky.social

The shining: my trip to the G7 horror show with Emmanuel Macron | Emmanuel Carrère The long read: Deeply unpopular in France, President Macron relishes the international stage, where he projects himself as the leader best placed to handle Trump. Seven years after our last encounter,...

🚨🚨🚨 Emmanuel Carrère on Emmanuel Macron 🚨🚨🚨

www.theguardian.com/news/2025/ju...

No President review – surreal Trump satire with ballet shoes and boners New York company Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s take on the US president is an ideas-packed, dance-adjacent comedy inspiring whoops and walkouts

I am intrigued, even as I know that I would hate the reality of this: www.theguardian.com/stage/2025/j...

Latest episode of Offal, including an extract from the upcoming Offal #2 book.

Conference Call Small Talk / Search History / The Only Way to Change Things is to Shoot Men Who Curate Things (by Iain Aitch) / A Message from Fleisch Smart Prosthetics

steady.page/en/offal/posts

This evening we did an Offal Industries experimental writing workshop at the Centre for Contemporary Art at Goldsmiths and it was triumphant. The texts produced were awesome. We may publish some. And our AI puppets produced reliably weird readings. If anyone wants this experience hit us up.

Off The Fence: THE PUB The biggest announcement, and the best thing, that we've ever made.

You guys probably already subscribe to Off the Fence, but there's a big announcement in the new one, and a little squib from your ever-so-humble correspondent

thefence.substack.com/p/off-the-fe...

“Private jets are like the canary in the coal mine here for a hyper unequal warming world,” Rutherford said.”

Sounds intriguing. Don’t know that one but the Grass Arena is absolutely brilliant and not as well known as it should be. Sarah moss, on the other hand, I can’t get along with.

Think they’re playing the Avalon stage this afternoon

Tom Crewe · My Hands in My Face: Ocean Vuong’s Failure I groaned​ my way through The Emperor of Gladness. I writhed. I felt real despair every time I forced myself to open...

LRB hatchet job klaxon! www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... Some absolute zingers in here, among which my fave: “It’s hard to believe that, in the history of literature, an episode of rimming has ever been presented in such gauzy terms, made quite so desperately sentimental.”

Pariah Press #photobooks:

Linden Archives
Out & About with Linden
3 3 0 0
(& Ben Jackson's Ulysses Estate)

now stocked at Biblioteka Library...
Architectural Association
36 Beford Square,
#London
WC1B 3ES

View by appointment.

www.aaschool.ac.uk/pressrelease...

#photography
#libraries

Gargoyle water spout

A most excellent gargoyle water spout at Sherburn in Elmet church #medievalsky

What Have You Got in Your Pockets? And how to look after a duck

More blogging. On collecting ephemera from people in the street. Also contains advice on how to look after a duck. open.substack.com/pub/scrapsan...

Over the last six years, we’ve built a reputation for breaking into worlds that other publications can't reach.

If that’s something you want to support, there’s no better way than buying a year’s subscription, for just £19.99 a year

the-fence.com/subscribe

On Tuesday night we put on an experimental independent magazine show, and it was great. Have a listen on the Stack blog to hear @thefence.bsky.social @vittles.bsky.social @offalindustries.bsky.social Real Review and The Paper on stage. stackmagazines.com/humour/an-ex...

Pic 1, New Viz came out a few days ago. Pic 2, Mr C, last night. Bless him. Guy can take a joke.

The Ballad of Wallis Island is an absolute joy. Tim Key’s facial expressions alone deserve awards.

1973: Nationwide: Goathland Plough Stots | #OnThisDay 1973: Nationwide covered the Goathland Plough Stot ceremony. Scarfolk is real. | By BBC Archive | Facebook #OnThisDay 1973: Nationwide covered the Goathland Plough Stot ceremony. Scarfolk is real.

Going to stay in Goathland this evening. It is a little misty today. Anyway, not expecting anything unusual.
www.facebook.com/BBCArchive/v...

Amazing! If you can spare I’d love that. Will dm address

Thank you for these kind words, Neil

Offal #23 ‘Offal Made Me Hardcore’. Featuring MC Award Ceremony, Polite Booty Workout, Slipmatt & Lime’s Rave Detective Agency, Offal Industries No-More-Comedown Ointment, and…

Everyone excited for the return of Adam Curtis tonight? Offal regular - check this episode at 14.05: steady.page/en/offal/pos...
It's all very affectionate, of course. I interviewed him for Dazed back in 2011 and he was great: markblacklock.com/2011/09/29/a...

My goodness. You should read this. Jeremy Beadle- very interesting, I had no idea!

I can imagine you'd need a pretty sonorous baritone to deploy Milton the way James outline here. Wouldn't work with a lisp.

"Postmodernism" in its various guises can be very exciting to study itself, John. It generally does not assault the idea of meaning, but encourages us to question the mechanisms by which it has been formed.

Meanwhile, my instutional inbox is flooded with invitations to events and symposia that are political, or seek to demonstrate that we are doing something to change the world. Laudable, but not much to do with literature. The fight is elsewhere, and tho we may not be equipped for it, we try to join /

refers to the need to dial up or down 1 of 5 categories in the grading criteria, as if she has incorrectly mastered the mixing desk. She is well taught by people who enthuse about the texts, but they too have trouble balancing the plates. Gove and Cummings did this, in a quest for the measurable 3/

The hoop-jumping required by the marking schemes for A-level English makes it impossible to enjoy. I sit with my daughter and we are excited by close readings of poems, decoding and celebrating the skill and beauty of the writing. When she does these for assessment, the feedback invariably ... 2/