Lauren Bensted

Oct 31, 2024 | the-fence.com | Lucas Oakeley |Ella Fox-Martens |Lauren Bensted |Claudia Cockerell

A short story in a pub. Deep breath now. Don’t move a muscle. Four glasses float by your head and you don’t quite know how the man caressing them like bowling pins in his wide hands hasn’t managed to spill a drop. You’d have been impressed at the dexterity of his movement – which was deft, almost Biles-like – if he hadn’t looked down the front of your top as he pliéd by. There was a hush before the music. Before the band really started to blow.

Oct 24, 2024 | the-fence.com | Ella Fox-Martens |Lauren Bensted |Claudia Cockerell |John Banville

Our anonymous restaurateur returns to turn the tables on the critics. I look down at my phone and a video of Michel Roux Junior standing in the street pops up. He’s next to a handsome blonde presenter, and without introduction, a microphone is shoved in his face. The question, ‘Best restaurant in London?’ is asked in an affected husky voice. For a moment I wondered how I might answer that question if asked by Jesse Burgess.

Oct 22, 2024 | the-fence.com | Clive Martin |Ella Fox-Martens |Lauren Bensted |Claudia Cockerell

Adding up the value of advertising. I’m in a draughty old warehouse just off Brick Lane, wearing a lanyard, sipping on a can of blackberry & açaí-flavoured Tenzing, while Ferne McCann from The Only Way Is Essex leads a ‘breathwork session’ for an audience entirely comprised of chief marketing executives, global account managers, senior creative leads and heads of innovation (EMEA region).

Oct 9, 2024 | the-fence.com | Lauren Bensted |Claudia Cockerell |John Banville |Miles Ellingham

Going to a special festival in County Durham. There is, of course, only one possible association with the words ‘Barnard Castle’. But my decision to travel there earlier this year had nothing to do with a certain bazillion-word blogger, a fact that no one is more pleased to hear than my taxi driver.

Sep 23, 2024 | the-fence.com | Bron Maher |Ella Fox-Martens |Lauren Bensted |Claudia Cockerell

Stripping down for the autumn budget. ‘Welcome to Disneyland,’ said the doorman at SBN, apparently indifferent to the trademark implications of associating the House of Mouse with an event that projects fisting porn on the walls. SBN, or Stark Bollock Naked, is a kink party that claims to attract ‘550 fun-loving individuals’ to each of its weekly entries.