JANUARY 11/12 2020

THE
PUTIN
What do young Russians think
about the only leader they’ve
ever known? Henry Foy reports

GENERATION
 @FTMag

5 Simon Kuper
Why I love and deplore the
French welfare state
6 Inventory
Classical guitarist Miloš
8 Tech World
How smart are Hong Kong’s lamp posts?
10 Robert Shrimsley
The narcissism of ‘new-age’ celebrities
10 Letters

12 ‘We are the Putin generation’

From Moscow to Siberia, young
Russians tell Henry Foy what they
think about the man whose long
rule has shaped their lives

20 The rules of the game

Sophie Calle has received some of
MARK STEINMETZ

photography’s most prestigious prizes

– yet her work defies categorisation.
Liz Jobey meets her in Paris

28 Observations
‘People think they know me. But they know nothing’ Douglas Coupland on why the fate of
the ozone layer should give us hope
An interview with the artist Sophie Calle, p20
about tackling global warming

30 Out of Office: James May

When he’s not travelling the world
or driving fast cars, the TV presenter
has discovered the slow joys of
woodworking. By Simon Usborne

34 Who ate all the peas?

Simon Kuper charts the changing
diets of top footballers, from pies
and pints to protein shakes
38 Honey & Co
Tahini creamed chard
41 Jancis Robinson
Mr Merlot’s next adventure
42 My Addresses
Chef Elia Sebregondi on Naples
43 I’d be lost without…
a decanter, says Noble Rot’s Dan Keeling
44 Nicholas Lander
Davies and Brook, Daniel Humm’s first
‘Until the mid-1990s Arsenal London venture
offered players a full English 45 Games
breakfast before training’ 46 Gillian Tett
Should America’s GDP
Simon Kuper on footballers’ diets, p34
include illegal drug use?

Issue number 852 • Online ft.com/magazine • Editorial

inquiries 020 7873 3282 • Advertising inquiries 020 7873 3121
• FT Weekend Magazine is printed by the Walstead Group in
the UK and published by The Financial Times Ltd, Bracken
House, 1 Friday Street, London EC4M 9BT © The Financial
‘A wonderful marriage Times Ltd 2020 • No part of this magazine may be
reproduced in any form without the prior express permission
of flavour and texture’ of the publisher

Honey & Co’s tahini

creamed chard, p38 Cover photograph by Evgeniy Ivanov

FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 3

 E
arly in the French transport strike,
I went into a Parisian hospital for a
minor operation. I lay on a stretcher
in a cramped pre-op room among a
dozen or so men and women, each
of us wearing only a backless paper
hospital gown. An orderly walked in
and gaped at the crush: “It’s like the
Métro here!”
In fact, the Métro is worse. The
few trains still running are jam-
SIMON
packed, as the rail workers’ strike
over pensions enters its second month. Suburban
trains are worse still: commuters can spend an
hour shuffling through dangerously overcrowded
stations just to reach the platform. (The strike is
an almost entirely Parisian phenomenon. Most
KUPER
people in other French regions drive to work or
use public transport run by private companies,
whose employees aren’t striking.)
Ostensibly, the strike opposes Emmanuel
Macron’s attempts to reform pensions and end
the “special regimes” that allow some workers to
retire early (including train drivers at age 52). But
as with the gilets jaunes’ protests, there’s a deeper
OPENING SHOT issueatstake:theFrenchwelfarestate.Rightwing
foreign critics think that the French state, from
Why I love trains to hospitals, needs shrinking. French left-
ists think Macron is shrinking it too much. After
and deplore
18 years in Paris, I disagree with both sides: I both
love and deplore the French system.
I’m very familiar with the leftwing narrative,
the French because I live on the boulevard where protest
marches are held. During a march last month, a
welfare state communist bookshop set up literally on our door-
step. In the French left’s view, Macron is Thatcher
reincarnated, a neoliberal ex-banker trying to
deprive French workers of their traditional right
to a long third age of wine, yoga and boules.
The problem with this narrative is that France
todayisaboutasfarasanysocietygetsfromaneo-
liberalwasteland.In2018,afterMacron’sfirstyear
of reforms, French government spending was still
56 per cent of gross domestic product, the highest
for any country in the OECD, the rich-nation club.
Moreover,Frenchpensionsarenowlongerthan
ever before. In 1970 – the zenith of the postwar
decades remembered here as les trente glorieuses,
“the glorious thirty” – the effective average age of
retirement was 67. The average life expectancy
for French men (who made up the vast majority
of the workforce back then) was 68. Today,
the effective French average retirement age is
just 60.8, or 4.5 years below the OECD average,
while life expectancy has reached 83, according
to OECD data. French lifespans have been rising
by about two years a decade, so even if Macron
manages to raise the legal age for a full pension
from 62 to 64, there’ll still be time for boules. As
the writer Sylvain Tesson says, exaggerating only
slightly: “France is a paradise inhabited by people
who think they’re in hell.”
This near-paradise is funded by taxes. Many
poorerworkerspayaheftysliceoftheirincomesin
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY HAYSOM
social charges. Gilets jaunes protesting about their
weak purchasing power and workers marching
for their pensions are two sides of the same coin:
the former are funding the latter’s retirements.
If the leftwing narrative about France is
unconvincing, so is the rightwing one. This says
that France needs a Thatcher to “tame” unions
and slash the state. In fact, the unions have done
a lot to help France maintain its relatively low
inequality and generous welfare state. Crush
unions, and the more isolated French regions
might end up as deprived as post-Thatcherite
northern England.
‘Paying towards world-class
healthcare and the Métro
makes me feel there’s a moral
purpose to my working life’
I say this as someone who pays more than half
my income to the French state. On the one hand,
this mildly disincentivises me from doing extra
paid work. On the upside, it’s oddly relaxing:
since there is little point maximising your earn-
A
ings here, you can devote your life to something
more interesting.
t the risk of sounding insane,
paying towards world-class
universal healthcare and the con-
struction of 68 Métro stations in
Paris’s suburbs (Europe’s big-
gest public-transport project)
makes me feel there’s some moral
purpose to my working life. I’m
especially happy to pay because
I owe the French welfare state. In
2011, my wife was diagnosed with
an aggressive cancer. We walked
through the hospital courtyard discussing how
I’d raise our children if she died. A fantastic
Parisian hospital saved her. I’d like everyone to
have such good care. However, I’m not happy to
pay for train drivers to retire at 52.
Much of the left-v-right argument about
France is based on a false dichotomy. The
notion is that either France retains the imag-
ined big-state paradise of the trente glorieuses
or it embraces le capitalisme anglo-saxon red in
tooth and claw. But there’s a third alternative: the
social democracy of France’s northern European
neighbours, where strong trade unions almost
never need to strike because they work together
with the state and business. Once at a conference
I watched the main Dutch union leader and the
head of the employers’ federation chatting at
their own breakfast table like old mates. When
that becomes the norm here, France really will
be paradise.
simon.kuper@ft.com @KuperSimon
5
 ‘Musical instruments
are like people
– they each have
their own soul’
I N V E N T O R Y M I L O Š , C L A S S I C A L G U I TA R I S T
Award-winning Montenegrin
guitarist Miloš Karadaglić, 36,
known simply as Miloš, was
appointed a fellow of the Royal
Academy of Music in 2015. His
2011 debut album Mediterráneo,
(titled The Guitar in the UK),
remained at number one in the
UK classical chart for 28 weeks.
What was your childhood
or earliest ambition?
To be a musician is all I ever really
wanted to do.
Private school or state school?
University or straight into work?
State school – in Montenegro we
didn’t have private schools. At the
same time, I was going to a music
school. At the age of 17 I came to
study at the Royal Academy of
Music in London.
Who was or still is your mentor?
Many people. My parents, my best
friend, my teacher at the academy.
And today, many of my closest
6 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
friends. Each and every one of
them is a treasure.
How physically fit are you?
Pretty fit. I exercise, not obsessively,
but to keep my stamina. Being
alone on stage for two hours is
exhausting. Keeping mentally fit is
very important as well – I meditate,
try to find my centre.
Ambition or talent: which
matters more to success?
It’s a chicken and egg situation.
If you have one and not the
other, it doesn’t work.
How politically committed
are you?
I try very hard not to be politically
committed. There is way too much
emphasis on politics in our lives.
I come from a country where
politics had a very direct influence
– we all saw what happened in the
Balkans in the 1990s. But having
lived in London for 20 years, it’s
hard not to be politically engaged
now. These are challenging times.
What would you like to own that
you don’t currently possess?
Patience.
What’s your biggest extravagance?
I’m a Mediterranean person, we
are extravagant by default. When
there’s an opportunity to enjoy life,
I’m the first to say, “Let’s go for it.”
My proper biggest extravagance
is my second guitar – a very, very
special guitar that I use just at
home. It’s by the same maker
I’ve used for the past 10 years.
Greg Smallman is a true alchemist
when it comes to building guitars.
Instruments are like amazing
people – they each have their own
soul, they each influence you in a
different way emotionally.
In what place are you happiest?
Swimming in the Mediterranean. No
matter what’s happening in my life,
the moment I dive in and come up,
I have a smile on my face. It’s almost
like rebirth. I have a deep spiritual
connection with the Mediterranean.
What ambitions do you still have?
To continue doing what I am doing.
To be a better human being and a
better musician.
What drives you on?
The wonder of music-making. The
joy of sharing that. One doesn’t
need anything else.
What is the greatest achievement
of your life so far?
I spent the past couple of years
recovering from a hand injury. This
was one of the most difficult times
of my life. I went through it and
could find my music again.
What do you find most
irritating in other people?
Dishonesty. False pretences.
If your 20-year-old self could see
you now, what would he think?
He would be very proud. He would
also say, “Try harder, keep going!”
I was a very determined 20-year-
old, very focused – far away from
home in London – to succeed and
achieve my wildest dreams.
Which object that you’ve lost
do you wish you still had?
When I was growing up, our
country was really isolated. My
mother went on a trip just after
all those troubles and came back
with this beautiful blue jumper.
I brought it to London and I lost
it. That present from my mother –
it felt as though it was the world’s
most precious thing at the time.
What is the greatest
challenge of our time?
Finding peace within ourselves –
the silence within ourselves. It is in
the moments of peace and silence
that the magic really happens.
Do you believe in an afterlife?
I’m an optimistic doubter.
If you had to rate your satisfaction
with your life so far, out of 10,
what would you score?
Eleven.
MURAT KULA/GETTY IMAGES
Interview by Hester Lacey.
Miloš plays various dates this
month, including Wigmore Hall,
London, on January 25. His album
“Sound of Silence” is out now on
Decca Classics; milosguitar.com
 TECH WORLD
NOTES FROM A DIGITAL BUNKER
BY YUAN YANG IN CHINA
Just how smart
are Hong Kong’s
lamp posts?
T
he New Year in Hong Kong
began with a bang – not
the usual firework display,
which the government
cancelled, but the sound of police
firing tear-gas canisters. Once
again, protesters turned out in force
to continue their seven-month
demonstration against Beijing’s
influence in the nominally
autonomous region, the lack of real
democracy and police brutality.
Despite a government ban on
face masks, the better-prepared
wore them to protect against the
tear gas. But the masks served
another function too: to prevent
identification by automated facial-
recognition technology. Over the
course of the protests, legislators
have repeatedly asked the executive
8 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
ILLUSTRATION BY PÂTÉ
to clarify its use of such technology
on the streets but the government
has avoided answering the question.
The suspicions around facial
recognition in Hong Kong provide a
warning of what can happen when a
government’s lack of transparency
in its use of surveillance tech
collides with widespread anger
over governance. In the absence of
trust, citizens are turning to their
own theories of what technology the
government is using against them.
Last August, a viral video showed
protesters pulling down a “smart
lamp post” equipped not just
with lights but also cameras and
Bluetooth beacons. The government
has said that smart lamp posts
are not facial-recognition enabled
but many are sceptical and have
crowdsourced their own analyses
of what the posts can do.
The moment the lamp post
was felled, protesters scavenged
components. Others analysed
their functions. One anonymous
researcher warned that facial-
recognition algorithms could run
on any video footage with sufficient
resolution, even if the cameras
didn’t contain hardware that
suggested links to facial-recognition
firms. This is correct; as long as
the footage can be streamed to
another computer, citizens cannot
know what is being done to it.
Thus the government is being
asked to prove a negative, that it is
not running any facial-recognition
algorithms on public surveillance
footage or passing the footage on
to third parties – such as China’s
mainland police, who we know
are using such algorithms.
The only way that it might
prove such a negative is if it had,
early on, credibly committed to
transparency and to constraints in
its use of surveillance technology.
Hong Kong’s own Personal Data
(Privacy) Ordinance, which allows
people to request their data, does
not do the job, as it has broad
exemptions for “the prevention or
detection of crime”. The problem
is Hong Kongers already disagree
with their government over what
is criminal, and the category of
“prevention” is broad and vague.
Other city governments have
begun to engage in discussions
concerning the boundaries
of surveillance. Last year,
San Francisco was the first major
city to temporarily ban government
use of facial recognition by passing
a surveillance ordinance. It also
ensures that government purchases
of other surveillance technology
must be approved by an oversight
body. Several US cities have or are
considering passing similar laws.
Such agreements would change
the landscape of state surveillance,
not just in Hong Kong or mainland
China, but also in the UK and other
democracies. Police in London
kept quiet their involvement with
a clandestine facial-recognition
‘The government claims
the lamp posts are not
facial-recognition enabled
but many are sceptical’
program in King’s Cross until it
was revealed by the FT last year.
Other cities may not face
the breakdown of trust that
has happened in Hong Kong.
But placing explicit limits on
surveillance would help citizens
fight more specific injustices;
San Francisco, which has a
commitment to not help deport
undocumented immigrants,
has decided not to share certain
data with immigration police.
There is also the problem of
misidentification by the technology,
as well as databases being leaked
– a common problem in China,
where the government has hastily
rolled out facial-recognition-
enabled surveillance cameras.
In China, a public debate is now
brewing over facial recognition.
But whether your government
is a one-party autocracy or a
functioning democracy, it’s
always more effective to start
the discussion over surveillance
technology before your town has
been turned into a “smart city”.
Yuan Yang is the FT’s
China tech correspondent
 ROBERT SHRIMSLEY
THE NATIONAL CONVERSATION
The narcissism of
‘new-age’ celebrities
A
re you feeling yourself
today, or are you feeling
your you? I ask because
one of Britain’s best-
known personalities thinks it
may be important.
It is a bizarre aspect of modern
celebrity that people who would
consider themselves far too cool
to go around telling you they have
found Jesus (I am talking about
Britain here, not the US, where you
are not allowed to have lost him in
the first place) see nothing wrong
with sententiously boring on about
their latest new-age guru.
Step forward Chris Evans, DJ,
general scamp and long-term
sufferer of several diseases of the
rich, with a Sunday Times Life
Lessons article so screamingly
devoid of self-awareness that at
first it seemed it must be a joke.
The path to inner peace, you will
not be surprised to learn, does not
turn out to be wealth, which would
not make for a terribly spiritual
article. Some of these screeds run to
1,000 words. Among the learnings
on offer from Evans were such epics
as: “What you are looking for, you
are already looking from”; “We do
not need to chase or find love, we
are love”; “Everything you really
want, you already have”; and, my
favourite, “We say, ‘I am not myself
today,’ but we never say, ‘Myself is
not my I today.’”
Now, I’ve always liked Evans,
for all his tiresome laddishness.
No one can object if this helps him
with his demons. But it is a bit rich
to be told by a multimillionaire that
“Everything you really want, you
already have.” That might be true if
you’ve got a bunch of Ferraris and a
seven-figure radio deal. If, however,
you are picking up parcels from a
food bank, you may question that
particular piece of wisdom. Then
again, that may just be yourself not
being your you.
Another Evans gem ran: “There
is no such thing as wrong or right,
10
ILLUSTRATION BY LUCAS VARELA
or good or evil, it is purely thinking
that makes it so.” Really, no such
thing as evil or wrong? What about,
you know, just to be obvious, the
Nazis? Was it only my thinking that
made them evil? Or am I missing the
point, and it is their thought that
made them evil? Is it just that the
Nazis did not realise that everything
they wanted, they already had?
Apparently, a lot of this new
wisdom has come courtesy of a guru
called Eckhart Tolle, author of The
Power of Now. I must admit to never
having been troubled by any of his
musings, although it is possible
that his book was read by myself,
rather than me. Anyway, he’s huge.
Oprah Winfrey loves him, as does,
confusingly, the movie star Chris
Evans, so maybe he is just a guru
for rich and famous Chris Evanses.
At one level, this is merely the
inane ramblings of another celeb
who has found his version of
religion and apparently lacks the
self-awareness to remember how
old Chris might have mocked such
portentous piffle.
But anyone who has seen friends
fall for similar guff knows the
drawbacks. A number of mine were
sucked into aggressive self-help
organisations such as Est and
The Forum built by Werner Erhard,
a Philadelphia-born car dealer
who changed his name from Jack
Sick of feeling inactive and unhealthy on work trips? Check out our
top tips for a healthier stay in London and elsewhere on ft.com/globetrotter,
the FT’s new digital city guides for the modern business traveller
Rosenberg. They too emerged from
intensive all-day seminars talking
about the need to shake off the
“stories” we weave around our lives,
and with the same urgent desire to
make all of their friends follow the
life-changing experience.
This burning need to persuade
everyone to drink the same Kool-
Aid – and the aggressive emotional
assault on anyone who refused
– was the most alarming feature
of their spiritual awakening,
to the point where I even worried
that one friend had been rather
brainwashed. We have all
experienced the excitement of a
new discovery and the need to talk
about it, but at some point a true
self-help guide needs to be the
friend telling you to dial it down.
If there are lessons to learn from
Evans, I’d prefer the one on
becoming a multimillionaire.
In the end, if all this twaddle
makes anyone a happier human,
then more power to their elbow.
But if it turns you into a tedious
narcissist, unable to recognise
that the life you have is beyond
the reach of all those to whom you
are now preaching, then perhaps
your you needs to have a quiet
word with yourself.
robert.shrimsley@ft.com
@robertshrimsley
Reply
Re John Gapper on “How we
all became screen obsessives”
(January 4/5). It always astounds
me just how many people will be
using a smartphone on either the
Tube or on a bus. I reckon it must
be about 80 per cent, sometimes
even higher. We are definitely
hooked on our mobile devices.
PMc via FT.com
@PascaleHarter January 5
If you read only one non-news
piece this Sunday, let it be this
column by Joshua Chaffin via @FT
on how studying abroad shaped
him. Leave time to stare out the
window afterwards
Paul Graham’s images of people
watching television (“Tuned in”,
January 4/5) featured beautiful
photographs of seemingly mundane
moments. These still shots
convey meaning and emotions,
probably more than the forgotten
entertainment these people were
watching on TV.
Quiz answers The link was horse-drawn vehicles 1. Carriage clock 2. Surrey 3. Paint Your Wagon 4. Chariots of Fire 5. Head coach of the England cricket team
David M via FT.com
6. The Mousetrap – by Agatha Christie 7. “The Hay Wain” 8. Gig 9. Hackney 10. McFly Picture quiz Olivia Newton-John + Evelyn Waugh = John Evelyn
Re “The evolution of video games”
(January 4/5). Today’s games are
masterpieces of storytelling, the
way they can develop characters
over 70-100 hours of gameplay is
one of the biggest steps forward
over TV and film. Games such as
Red Dead Redemption 2, Horizon
Zero Dawn and The Witcher 3 have
defined this generation.
Pete via FT.com
Further to Gillian Tett’s column
“Democracy works – but only
if we work at it” (January 4/5).
Yes, it still works but a certain
category of the population assume
democracy isn’t working when it
doesn’t produce the result they
like. We need to accept the result
even if it isn’t to our liking. That
is what makes democracy work.
One example is Trump. The people
who vilify him forget that the same
system gave us Obama, Clinton
and the previous presidents too.
Rationalhuman via FT.com
To contribute
Please email magazineletters@ft.com. Include
a daytime telephone number and full address
(not for publication). Letters may be edited.
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
‘WE ARE
THE PUTIN
GENERATION’
Over the past 20 years, an entire cohort of young Russians
has grown up under the rule of one man. Henry Foy talked
to dozens of them across the country to understand how
Vladimir Putin’s regime has shaped their lives – and what
happens next. Photographs by Evgeniy Ivanov
A meeting of the pro-Putin youth group
Network in Moscow in October

12 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 13

 A
lexander Khazbiyev
was just five years old
when Vladimir Putin
was first sworn in as
Russia’s president.
The private ceremony
at the start of the new
millennium signalled
the rise of the former
spy from nervous newcomer to global promi-
nence. In May 2018, Alexander – then 24 – was in
the audience at the president’s most recent inau-
guration, a glitzy, televised ceremony in the Grand
Kremlin Palace to mark the beginning of Putin’s
fourth term in office.
Inthetwodecadesbetween,Putinhasgonefrom
anonymous apparatchik to one of the world’s most
powerful men, and Russia’s economy has grown
to more than six times its 2000 size, following
massive oil-fuelled booms and sharp recessions.
The country has joined the World Trade Organ-
ization, been kicked out of the G8, invaded two
neighbours and hosted a World Cup and a Winter
Olympics. Putin, now 67, has sparred with four US
presidents and five British prime ministers.
“In my mind, there is no such period of time
when Putin was not there, when he did not exist,”
says Alexander, a university teacher who lives in
St Petersburg and gained his ticket to the inaugu-
ration through Network, a pro-Putin youth group.
“I have never really stopped to think about this
country without him as president. I’m convinced
that Putin as a politician is one thing… but the
system he has created will always be here,” he says.
“Well, that is what I hope.”
Alexander is not alone. A generation of Rus-
sians – about 40 million people – have been born
or spent their entire education in a political system
that revolves around one man.
ThisPutingeneration,whohavegrownupunder
hisregime,arenowcomingofage.Overthepastfew
months, the FT interviewed almost 50 of them, all
aged between 18 and 25 and hailing from Moscow,
St Petersburg, Siberia and beyond.
Putin’sKremlinhassoughttocreateageneration
largely numb to politics, through the repression
of opposition movements, a propaganda-heavy
media machine and a cult of personality. For tens
of millions, the only change of leadership in their
lifetime has been a cosmetic one – a job swap engi-
neered by Putin that saw him rule the country as
prime minister between 2008 and 2012 before
returning as president. His time in charge of the
country is second only to Joseph Stalin’s 31-year
rule over the Soviet Union, while his party, United
Russia, has never held fewer than 238 seats in the
450-strong national parliament.
AlmostalloftheyoungRussianswhotalkedtothe
FTrecognisetheunspokencontractforcedonthem
by Putin’s regime: social stability and economic
progress in exchange for colourless, restricted
democracy. Many expressed support and admira-
tion for the only leader they have ever known. But
othersrailedagainstamanwhohasruledforlonger
than they have been alive, and created a system in
which they feel increasingly powerless.
Putin’s pitch to voters of all generations is
simple: he is the man who ended the chaos of the
1990s following the collapse of the Soviet Union,
and replaced lawlessness and instability with a
solid state and economic growth. Or as Vitya, a
14
24-year-old from central Siberia, puts it, repeating
a mantra drilled into him by his parents and the ‘We were born in this system, and this
Kremlin: “We associate the change of power with
hunger and suffering.” system is in our brains. So it is very,
Those who seek change from Putin have found
theymust compete against not just the might of the very difficult to even start to think
Kremlin and the truncheons of the riot police but
also the apathy common among the vast majority about the possibility of changing it’
oftheirfellowyouth–agenerationraisedonastrict
diet of political indifference. Maria, 21
“We were born in this system, and this system is
inourbrains.Soitisvery,verydifficulttoevenstart
to think about the possibility of changing it,” says
Maria, 21, from Taganrog on the Black Sea.
By most calculations, Russia’s economy shrank
by60percentbetween1991and1999,abiggercon-
traction than during the second world war. Under
then president Boris Yeltsin, the country fell into
a national depression, cast as the loser in the cold
war and no longer the powerful global actor it had
believed itself to be.
Putin’s propaganda portrays him as the bringer
ofplenty,boostedby anopportune six-fold surgein
global oil prices between 1998 and 2008 that vastly
inflated Russia’s income from energy exports.
According to this, out went Yeltsin and his oligarch
cronies, economic uncertainty and internal strife;
in came a strong, dependable leader, cash in your
bank account and shopping centres where a newly
minted middle class could buy Zara jeans, try on
Nike trainers and lunch at KFC.
“I come from a military family. I grew up in a
garrison town. I remember watching the [2000
inauguration] broadcast, and the atmosphere of
anticipation,of myfamilywaitingfor change,” says
Alexander. “My parents were both officers, they
hadn’t been paid their wages for half a year. The
entire community had this sense of being betrayed
by the country. I remember when Vladimir Putin
came, both my mother and father had such high
expectations that something would change. And it
did. It all turned out for the best.
“Today, in Russia, if you want to achieve some-
thing, you can make it. This freedom has been
guaranteed, for the first time in the history of our
country,” he says. “We are the luckiest generation
in the whole of Russian history.”
Until 2014, few would have disagreed. Russia’s
economy soared in the first decade of Putin’s rule,
driving up living standards. The number of people
attending university rose 50 per cent between
2000 and 2010, and unemployment among the
under-25s fell by a quarter. Coffee shops and bars
began to multiply, and European and American Alexander, 25: ‘I have never really stopped to think
brands flooded the country to cater to the first about this country without him as president’
generation with easy access to western culture and
international travel.
“The current generation of young Russians are
the happiest since 1991,” says Eduard Ponarin,
professor of sociology at Russia’s Higher School Left: Vladimir Putin
of Economics. “Happy, apolitical and nation- as prime minister in
alist, to generalise… and that is why politics is 1999, with Russia’s then
president Boris Yeltsin
nothing to worry about, for most… it would take
something dramatic or very, very bad to politicise Right: the young Putin
them,” he says. in St Petersburg in 1970
Yet a new, more sober economic reality has
marked Putin’s second stint in the Kremlin. In
2014, Russia was hit by twin shocks: an oil-price
collapse that sparked a short recession and a 50 per
cent fall in the value of the rouble, and the imposi-
tion of western sanctions in response to Moscow’s
invasion and annexation of Crimea. ▶ Vasily, 23, in front of an installation at Moscow’s architecture museum: ‘I don’t really discuss politics’
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 15

Richard, 25: ‘The youngsters now are more fearless… They literally have nothing to lose’
◀ In the years since, Russia’s economy has flat-
lined. Real incomes have fallen for five of the past
six years. Youth unemployment in Russia is more
than three times the rate of the total population,
according to 2018 data, compared with just twice
the rate in 2000. A study conducted in October
by the Levada Center, Russia’s sole independent
pollster, showed 53 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds
wanted to leave the country, the highest level since
2009. For these members of the Putin generation,
the president’s social contract is bust.
F
romthearchitecturemuseuminMoscow
where he works, Vasily can see the
towering walls of the Kremlin. It’s just a
few hundred metres away but it might as
well be hundreds of miles.
“There are two different worlds, the one in
which I live, and the one with a cortège and flash-
ing lights,” says Vasily, 23, who was raised in
St Petersburg. Like many we spoke to, he was not
comfortable having his surname published, for
fear of reprisals. “In theory, I understand that this
[political] world concerns me,” he says.“But on the
other hand, it seems to me like some sort of game.”
16
Vasily has voted once in his life, in a small city
council election, and then only because a friend
of his was running. “I don’t really discuss politics,
only because I don’t understand much, it doesn’t
interest me much, and it reinforces this feeling of
alienation,” he says.
“I know that hypothetically speaking there
are problems, and that in some respects we are
moving in the wrong direction, but while you’re
sitting comfortably, you do not feel like doing any-
thing,” he explains. “I have lots of friends that
would kill me for saying these things – [they say]
we need to create and work towards a civil soci-
ety… [But] as long as my life does not drive me to
the edge, I do not want to act, because it’s more
trouble than it’s worth.”
Among her friends in Tomsk, a mid-sized city
in central Siberia, Irina, 19, uses a common phrase
for people who like to complain about Putin but
are afraid of taking action: divannye kritiki, or “sofa
critics”. “A lot of people criticise but no one does
anything…” she says. “The mentality is that all owe
something, but as an individual you don’t want
to do anything. They think: ‘What can I do alone?
What can I change by myself?’ So they give up.
“If you are at a party, it is considered strange if
you try to discuss politics. It’s really weird, so we
don’t even try,” she explains. “I’m too young to
solve problems. I have my own problems.”
Vasily and Irina speak for many. Two-thirds of
Russian schoolchildren say they have no interest
in politics, according to a national survey released
in October. Life spent under one president has
made young people “not pro-Putin or anti-Putin,
but rather disengaged”, according to a senior offi-
cial who has worked in the Kremlin. “It is obvious
that the more competitive a situation you have in
politics, the more attractive it is for everyone, but
especially young people. When you have a lack
of political competition, between either parties
or individuals, it makes politics less attractive to
young people.
“Ifyouarethinkingstrategically,thenabsolutely
it makes [young people] less dangerous to those in
power,” he added. “A lack of competition in any
space makes people more stupid, less intelligent –
in business, and in politics. If you are the monopoly,
then it is a great pleasure to be a monopolist.”
Putin certainly enjoys his monopoly. Of the
parliamentary seats not held by United Russia,
almost all are taken by MPs from the “systemic
opposition”, a network of ostensibly separate par-
ties that take funding or orders from the Kremlin.
These parties provide an outlet for public anger at
controversialdecisions.Morecrudely,theymopup
disgruntled voters who might otherwise have gone
to real opposition movements.
The man at the heart of attempts to fan opposi-
tionintosomeformofactionisAlexeiNavalny.The
43-year-old lawyer, who rose to prominence after
winning 27 per cent of the vote to become mayor
of Moscow in 2013, has used a series of investiga-
tions exposing corruption by senior politicians to
tap into rising anger at the regime.
He has also sought to mobilise the Putin gen-
eration in street demonstrations and at the ballot
box.Youngpeopleinsearchofanti-Putinmediaare
largely limited to his broadcasts, along with social
media channels run by a handful of other opposi-
tion figures, including rappers. Navalny’s YouTube
channels boast more than 4.4 million subscribers,
most of whom are young, urban Russians.
One student from Kemerovo, in the heart of
Siberia’s coal country, recalls officers from the FSB,
Russia’s internal intelligence agency, coming to his
school and ordering the headteacher to ban pupils
from subscribing to Navalny’s social media pages.
“I didn’t even look up information on [Navalny],
because I was aware of the risk of being put in jail,”
he says. “People don’t talk about these stories…
And everybody accepts such a situation.”
Many of those who spoke to the FT said they did
not necessarily support Navalny’s actions, and felt
that the marches and protests, which often end in
police aggression and mass arrests, are futile and
unproductive.“IwenttoNavalny’smeetings,along
with my brother and some friends,” says Vasily.
“I don’t like their methods, they are unpleasant…
He and his people’s approach is too aggressive.
“It’s funny because you’re taken to the police
station, and the police are thinking, ‘Again these
schoolchildren, we’ve been brought schoolchil-
dren again,’” he says. “These meetings, you’vegone
once, then twice, shouted around a bit, and then
what?... We do not have any real alternative.”
Last summer’s events, which saw as many
as 60,000 people take part in weekly rallies in
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
 ‘When you have a lack of political
competition, between either parties or
individuals, it makes politics less
attractive to young people… It makes
[them] less dangerous to those in power’
Former Kremlin official

A Putin ring produced by a member of Network

Moscow, were the largest sustained demonstra-

tions in Russia since the Bolotnaya Square protests
that began in 2011. But the young Russians who
braved extreme cold and brutal police crackdowns
to take part back then watched their movement
peter out as the government held firm.
That experience has jaded many, and was cited
by several twentysomethings who told the FT they
skipped last summer’s actions as a result.
Even Ksenia Sobchak, 38, a TV personality who
was a key youth figure in the Bolotnaya protests
and who ran against Putin in 2018, admits that it
canbesmarterto“stayinthe shadows”.“Peopleget
bored, they can’t keep coming out [to protest] time
after time,” she told the FT last year. “They want to
stayin,to spend anevening with their girlfriend, go
to the cinema… You can’t always expect thousands
to be standing with you.”
“I think protesting is good, this is democracy,”
says Irina. “But when troops suppress these pro-
tests it’s also good. If there isn’t suppression, then
there will be chaos. So, two sides of one coin.”

Since 2011, Navalny and other activists have

organised semi-regular protests against Putin
and his regime, sometimes spurred by fresh rev-
elations of corruption – a few thousand people
with banners, a march under heavy police guard
through the centre of Moscow. None had major
impact. But something changed last summer, as a
wave of protests targeting very specific actions by
the authorities rolled across Russia, often led by
politically engaged young people.
Last June in Moscow, officers stopped Ivan Golu-
nov, a 36-year-old investigative journalist working
on an exposé of police corruption. He was arrested.
Afterasearchofhishome,hewaschargedwithdrug
possession, then beaten in detention and initially
denied a lawyer. His arrest sparked an immediate
backlash.Russia’sthreebiggestqualitynewspapers
ran identical front pages in protest. Leading media
figures and opposition activists condemned the
police. And outside Moscow’s police headquarters,
people began holding one-man protests.
For Dasha Kurova, 22, a film student from Vol-
gograd, it was the first time she had been moved
to take a stand. “I am not a protest person. I am
reallycalm,andwhenthingslikedemonstrations ▶ Dasha, 22: ‘I am not a protest person… but I had this feeling that I really had to do something’

FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 17


Diana, 21: ‘When Putin leaves, the people, the system he created will still be there’
◀ are happening, I prefer to sit at home and watch
a live stream: a divannyi kritik,” she says. “But this
summer, I saw a lot of things I didn’t understand.
I was shocked… I had this feeling that I really had
to do something. So I stood there, under the sun.”
Dasha was outside the police building on the day
that Golunov was released and the senior officials
behind the trumped-up charges were placed under
investigation.Soonafter,shewasbackonthepicket
line, this time outside the presidential admin-
istration, after police arrested Pavel Ustinov, a
23-year-oldactor,aspartofacrackdownonprotests
against moves to ban opposition candidates from
running in local elections in Moscow. The arrest of
Ustinov, who was not participating in the demon-
strations,byagroupofmasked,baton-wieldingriot
officers, became a rallying point against a summer
of police brutality. “They arrested an actor. I make
movies. Maybe something could happen to me,”
says Dasha. “I realised that maybe it was not right
for me to disengage with everything.”
Many young Russians told the FT that examples
of the state impinging on their lives had been the
trigger for them to take a stand against Putin’s
administration. They seemed willing to tolerate
elite corruption or autocracy but raged at trans-
gressions whose victims they could empathise
with, or which directly affected their own lives.
“The young generation in Russia are largely
disinterested in politics and bored by the system
and what it represents,” says Tatiana Stanovaya,
founder of R.Politik, a Russia-focused political
analysis firm. “But they are also sensitive to any
moves the state makes towards their personal
space. If you try to, say, censor their social media
experience, then they will get upset and engage.”
RichardBurakov,25,amastersstudent,wasalso
movedbylastsummer’sprotests.“Forthefirsttime
in a very long while, I went to protest. It felt like
it wasn’t a political thing for Navalny or his allies.
We were not supporting a particular person, but
insteadanideaoffreedom,”hesays.“Alotofpeople
fromdifferentbackgroundscametogether.Thereis
a lot of solidarity between people that wasn’t there
before…alotofpeoplewhobefore,eveniftheywere
anti-Putin, didn’t want to engage with protesting or
consider why it should bother them.”
Born in Italy to Russian parents and raised in
Siberia, Richard bemoans the lack of alternative
role models for young, liberal Russians. “This is
reality: we are the Putin generation. I completely
understand that he has shaped me as a person,
eventhoughthatisnotsomethingIliketoacknowl-
edge. It is a fact,” he admits with a laugh.
“But there are so many things wrong about this
country that are about the people at the top, in the
hierarchy who control things,” he says, referring to
corruption, oligarchs and vested interests. “They
will be there even when Putin leaves. That’s the TASS/GETTY IMAGES; LASKI DIFFUSION/GETTY IMAGES

problem: there is a system. The youngsters now

are more fearless and more principled… People
‘The younger generation are… sensitive that are going to the streets know that they could
bearrestedbuttheystilldo.Thisyounggeneration,
to any moves the state makes towards they literally have nothing to lose. My elder broth-
er’s generation,my parents…they have a lot to lose.
their personal space. If you try to, say, Stufftheyearnedorgainedinthe2000s,duringthe
huge economic boom.”
censor their social media experience, Young people arrested during the Moscow pro-
tests last summer told the FT they tossed their
then they will get upset and engage’ mobilephonesoutofpolice-stationwindowstostop
officers confiscating and searching the devices. In
Tatiana Stanovaya, R.Politik manycases,theirparentsarrivedtofishthemoutof

18 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020

 the bushes as the teens shrugged their way through
interrogations that led to warnings and small fines.
“Maybe Putin’s people don’t tell him things.
Maybe he thinks he lives in a perfect coun-
try. Maybe he doesn’t know what is going on,”
says Dasha. “But how can you ignore these things?
Is he living in some magic bubble? I love my coun-
try. I want to stay here. I want to make movies here.
But why? Why is Russia like this?”
M
any western politicians and pro-
democracy activists have long
hoped that a young, liberal upris-
ing could unsettle the Putin regime
andchangethefutureofRussia.But
that may underestimate the likes of Diana Alumy-
ats, who was 13 (officially a year too young) when
she illicitly joined the youth wing of Putin’s ruling
United Russia party. Now 21, she is an active organ-
iser at Molodaya Gvardiya, or Young Guard. The
group is the Kremlin’s effort to engage with young
people disillusioned with a political elite in which
manyoftheseniorroleshavebeenheldbythesame
figures since 2012. The average age of Putin’s senior
Kremlin team and Russia’s top ministers is 62.
“Typically, you hear this [complaining] from
people who do nothing. Who sit around watch-
ing television, complaining that nothing is getting
done andnothingisgettingbetter.Typically,young
people who complain on the internet are doing
nothing themselves,” says Diana, from Serpukhov,
100km south of Moscow. “When Putin leaves, the
people, the system he created will still be there.
Things will not be totally different, I hope.”
Molodaya Gvardiya’s iMac-filled offices in a con-
verted textile factory next to Russia’s government
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
headquarters encapsulate the sense of progress its
membersassociatewithPutin.About170,000Rus-
sians aged 14-35 are now members; 2,000 of them
were elected local councillors last summer.
“We were born into this situation, these circum-
stances,”saysDiana,nowauniversitystudent.“My
parents don’t tend to talk too much about the polit-
ical situation of the 1990s. They talk about social
problems, things like shortages of food. And then
howtheystartedtoimprove.Therewerememories
of a tough period of life they had to live through.
Putin is the thing that changed.
“We try to change the minds of young people
by giving them the sense that politics can be about
something else, about creating opportunities,” she
adds. “We aren’t going to schools and telling people
to vote for United Russia.”
Analysts say that efforts such as Molodaya
Gvardiya are both a response to Navalny’s suc-
cess on social media and a recognition that, while
the Kremlin’s efforts to make politics boring have
helped it shore up power, it has failed to adjust to
changing social trends. Putin’s strategists have
encouraged him to engage online through live
video platforms such as Periscope and Instagram,
according to a Kremlin official. Just 23 per cent
of young Russians surveyed in October said they
watched television daily, and 78 per cent said they
never got their news from newspapers or radio.
More than 83 per cent said they used the internet
each day “as a communication channel”.
“I am not embarrassed by this,” says Diana.
“I have an Instagram account where I share my
activities in Molodaya Gvardiya. Of course, some
friends are like, ‘Oh my god, United Russia again?
Whatisthisrubbish?’AndIsay‘No,lookatwhatwe
are achieving.’ When I put out photos showing what
wecando,friendscomeandseeandsay,‘OK,maybe
you are right,’” she says. “You lead by example.”
Putin’s fourth term as president ends in 2024.
As it stands, the constitution would ban him from
running again until 2030, when he would be 77. He
has voiced support for an idea to strengthen the
role of the parliament and weaken the presidency,
which some take as a hint he could return to being
prime minister.
The challenge for young Russians who do not
want to see his regime continue is stark: find
the means to unite and build a sustainable move-
ment that could provide an alternative, and
convince their apathetic compatriots that change
would not mean chaos.
“We have a perspective that our parents don’t,”
says Dasha. “But there are millions of people who
live in the countryside, who live in small cities,
thinking:‘Iamfinenow.Idon’twant tochangeany-
thing because anything different could be worse
than this.’ I used to be like this too,” she admits.
“[But] after this summer I realised… we have some
things that need to change.”
“I see there are lots of young people now who
arenotnecessarilyprotestingbutnotagreeingwith
what is happening in this country,” adds Richard,
who has rebuffed his parents’ suggestion that he
emigrate. “For the first time in a long while, people
arethinking,‘WhatcanIdotomakethingschange?’
And they might become a critical mass that could
affecteverythinginthiscountryoncePutinleaves.”
He pauses. “And hopefully he does.”
Henry Foy is the FT’s Moscow bureau chief
19
 The rules of
the game
Sophie Calle has followed people in the street,
invited women to analyse her break-up email
and inspired a character in a Paul Auster novel.
But although the artist has received some
of photography’s most prestigious prizes,
she still defies definition. Liz Jobey meets her
in Paris. Portraits by Mark Steinmetz

L
ast November, the French
artist Sophie Calle was in
London to receive the Royal
Photographic Society’s
Centenary Medal. The
society, founded in 1853, has been
keen to update its image of late,
and that night its efforts couldn’t
have been better served. If any
contemporary artist has rock-star
status among her fans, Calle has it,
and she went up to whistles and
cheers. Taking the lectern, she
said that when she’d been told
a speech wasn’t necessary, “I
immediately felt the desire to say
a few words…” After all, she added,
with a shrug: “A medal – a talk!”
“Things didn’t start so well
between photography and me,”
she began. Her first solo show had
met with “loud” disapproval from
other artists. When her pictures
were projected at the Arles photo
festival, the public had started
to boo: “For them, I was not a
photographer and they were
not entirely wrong.” A profile in
Le Monde had concluded that “she
can’t even take a good picture”.
“So, photographer or not a
photographer? I don’t care any
more,” she told the audience.
“In fact, I never did. Nevertheless,
I am still surprised to receive a
photo prize. And I want to sincerely
thank you for, in a way, having
decided for me.”
It was neatly done. Because Calle
is not a photographer, at least not
in the traditional sense. Over the
four decades she’s been working,
contemporary art has expanded
in all directions, but it’s still hard
to find a category for what she
does: conceptual, certainly;
autobiographical, sort of. Most of
her projects enjoy several lives –
as exhibitions, as books, as films or
combinations of all three. Most are
based on some experience from
her own life, but it might be a single
phrase from a chance conversation
or a meditation on a shared human
experience – betrayal, love,
memory, death. Photographs
always play a part but they rarely
have a leading role. Instead, they
supply a layer of visual evidence
for the ideas she comes up with.
Each work has its own
system, a rule book to be followed,
like a game. And each manages
to expose some aspect of human
frailty. Calle is like an amateur
psychologist, digging around in
the human psyche, fascinated by
what motivates our behaviour.
But while their sources may
be autobiographical, her projects
are not confessional. We seldom
learn much about her own inner ▶ Sophie Calle at her home in Paris, November 2019

20 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 21

 ◀ life. Instead, she puts her
problems out to tender and solicits
a response from others. Many
require the participation of
strangers to complete them.

A few days before she left to pick

up her medal, I met Calle at her
studio in south-west Paris, where
she lives and works. Behind a grimy
industrial facade, it’s one of a
colony of artists’ studios built
around a leafy central courtyard.
As we sat and talked, the winter sun
filtered through the wall of windows
into her pretty living space, one
wall lined with miniature art works,
which she collects, the other with
“swaps” from fellow artists.
She is 66 but looks at least a
decade younger: attractive, dark-
haired, energetic and immediately
engaging. She smiles a lot, though
in photographs her broad grin can
seem ironic, as if the joke might be
on you. She lives alone – unless
you count her menagerie of stuffed
animals: it includes a bear, a wolf,
birds, a giraffe and a little monkey
who proudly wears the gold
Hasselblad medal, one of the
highest awards in photography,
which she received in 2010. From the series True Stories: ‘Le Nez’, 2000; ‘Wait for me’, 2010
(I wondered later which would get
to wear the Centenary medal.)
Meeting her for the first time,
I think it’s strange how much I offers some examples. “The work
know about her already. Take her I did in Turkey, about the people
nose: it’s a distinctive nose, with a who never saw the sea [Voir la
pronounced curve, the kind that mer, 2011] – that started because
might trouble a teenager in front of somebody read me an article in a
the mirror. When she was 14, her Turkish newspaper… and it spoke
grandparents suggested she have about people who had never seen
plastic surgery to straighten it. She the sea, meaning people that are so
had her doubts but she was spared poor, so cut off from life, they had
the operation: two days before, the never seen it.” So she took some
surgeon committed suicide. of them to the shore for the first
I even know the name of the time and filmed them.
giraffe: Monique. She bought it “Or the first time I came across
after her mother died in 2006, and the idea of asking blind people
named it after her. These accounts what is the most beautiful thing
come from True Stories, one of they saw [The blind, 1986] is
her many small books, which because as I crossed an avenue,
collects together seminal events I heard a blind person talking
from her life and presents them, to another, saying, ‘Oh, I saw a
non-sequentially, short text on beautiful movie yesterday…’”
one side, photo on the other. Which comes first, her books or
At a time when the lines between her exhibitions? “Generally, it’s the
autobiography and fiction are so wall first and then I make a book
often blurred in literature and art, or sometimes it’s [both] together.
it’s easy to doubt the veracity of her But the wall really gave me my style
stories, but she swears nearly all of writing.” This was true from her
of them are true. “I don’t have the first exhibition, The Sleepers, in
ability to invent,” she says in fast, 1980, part of a biennale for young
fluent, accented English in which artists at the Musée d’Art Moderne
a few resistant French words still de la Ville de Paris. She had set
stick. “I can invent an idée but I up a darkroom in the garage
can’t invent a situation. I have to at home, which she shared with a
look at it, use it as material.” friend. One worked while the other
Sometimes, one idea suggests slept, taking it in turns to use From the series The Sleepers, 1979
the next; other times, her projects her bed. So she decided to extend
come from chance events. She the invitation, photographing

22 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020

 From the series The Gotham Handbook, ‘Des journées entières sous le signe du B, du C, du W’, 1998
volunteers and interviewing them
‘I don’t have the capacity to in bed. “I wrote under the photo
right away about what people did,
invent. I can invent an idée but you know, I took notes.”
The husband of one of the
I can’t invent a situation. I have women who slept in her bed was
an art critic who was selecting work
to look at it, use it as material‘ for the biennale and invited her.
“So, right away, it was the wall
first,” she says. “I immediately had
to [consider] the fact that people
read standing, so it has to be short…
It gave me my writing style because
I had to erase, erase, erase, until
each word was necessary to
understand it.
“Also, my father was an art
collector and I wanted to seduce my
father, and for me the way to seduce
him was with art on the wall, not
the book. Books were more on my
mother’s side. My mother read a
lot, she was surrounded by writers.
So in a way, I made the work on the
wall for my father and the books
for my mother.”
Calle grew up in Paris. Her father
was a doctor, her mother was a
journalist. Although they separated
when she was three, both played an
enduring role in her life and her
work. “My mother was completely
From the series Suite Vénitienne, 1980 wild and extremely funny,” she
says. Her father, by contrast, “was
very serious, very deep”.
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
At 18, she enrolled at the
University of Nanterre to study
sociology, where one of her
tutors was the philosopher
Jean Baudrillard. “Baudrillard
became a friend. He liked me,
he thought my life was more
interesting outside the university
than inside, and he pushed me to
travel. He thought it was much
more useful for me. I told him that
my father would only [support me]
if I was studying, never if I was just
hanging out. So Baudrillard said,
‘If you want, I will pass all your
exams.’” He offered to put down a
pass mark for all her papers, so she
would still get her degree. When
she told her father about the deal,
he apparently accepted it.
Calle spent the next seven years
travelling in Europe, Mexico and
the US, finding jobs as she went.
It was in California that she first
picked up a camera. The images
that really gave her an inkling of a
future path were of two gravestones
in the cemetery: each had only one
word – “Sister”, “Brother” – no
names, no dates, no epitaphs. It was
a subject she would return to later.
She told her father she had found
something she thought she wanted
to do, came back to Paris and
started to look for a subject. “I don’t
know where to go because I don’t ▶
23
 ◀ know the places, or the people,”
she recalls, slipping into the present
tense. “So I start to follow people,
just to give an energy to my days.
If they take me to a new bar, at least
I will meet a new bar. If they take
me to a neighbourhood I don’t
know, OK. If they take me to the
Champs-Elysées, I’m going there.”
In January 1979, she followed
a man but quickly lost sight of
him. Then, the same evening,
by complete coincidence, she
was introduced to him at a party.
He told her he was planning a
trip to Venice. She followed him,
tracking him down to his hotel
and photographing him without
his knowledge.
She had told Baudrillard about
her project, and then she received
an offer of a book. “Cahiers du
Cinema wanted to publish it,
but my name was no name and
they wanted someone to write,
and Jean proposed to write it.”
The result was her first book,
Suite Vénitienne, in 1983.
That year, she also landed in
legal trouble when she found an
address book in the street. Before
sending it back to the owner, Pierre
D (his first name and address were
on the cover), she photocopied all
the entries – more than 400 of them
– and began calling the names one
by one, inviting them to meet her
and, if they agreed, asking them
to describe the man, building up
a picture of him based on their
anecdotes. When it was serialised
in Libération, Pierre D recognised
himself and threatened to sue.
She had to agree not to republish
it until after his death.
It was this early work that had
fascinated the American novelist
Paul Auster, who borrowed some
of Calle’s projects for the character
of Maria in his 1992 novel Leviathan.
Almost 30 years later, his
description of Maria/Sophie still
fits. “Maria was an artist, but the
work she did had nothing to do with
creating objects commonly defined
as art. Some people called her a
photographer, others referred to
her as a conceptualist, still others
considered her a writer, but none of
those descriptions was accurate,
and in the end I don’t think she can
be pigeonholed… Her work was too
nutty for that… this activity didn’t
stem from a desire to make art so
much as from a need to indulge her
obsessions, to live her life precisely
as she wanted to live it.”
To Maria’s résumé he added
some projects of his own, such
as eating foods of one colour or
spending the day living under
24
a single letter: B, C and W. When
Calle read the novel, she decided
to complete the character and live
them out. Not satisfied, she asked
Auster to write her a new story so
she could live it out in full.
“Well,” Auster told me, “I knew
Sophie well enough by then.
And I realised that she would do
anything. If I told her to join
Hamas, she would join Hamas and
become a terrorist. If I told her to
jump off the Brooklyn Bridge,
she would jump off the Brooklyn
Bridge. I thought, I’m dealing with
dynamite here and I don’t want
to do it. She would call me every
month, ‘Where’s my story Paul?
I’m waiting for my story.’ And for
two years I kept fending her off.
I hoped she would just, simply,
goddammit, forget the whole thing.
“Finally, I said to myself,
‘All right, I’m going to keep my
promise.’ I thought of the most
innocent project imaginable,
something that could not get her
into any trouble whatsoever.”
The result was The Gotham
Handbook, in which he wrote out
a list of “personal instructions for
SC. On how to improve life in New
York City.” They included: “Smile
when the situation doesn’t call
for it… Pick one spot in the city
and begin to think of it as yours.”
Calle responded enthusiastically,
complete with supporting pictures.
Only when she decorated a
New York phone booth, which
turned out to be a federal offence,
did the project draw to a close.
She and Auster had dinner together.
He told her, “It’s finished, Sophie.
You can stop smiling.”
One of Calle’s most wide-ranging
works is “Prenez soin de vous”
(“Take care of yourself”), first
shown at the Venice Biennale in
2007. The title is taken from the
last line of an email she received
from a lover, ending their affair.
Curious as to its real meaning, she
decided to investigate. “I received
an email telling me it was over.
I didn’t know how to respond. It was
almost as if it hadn’t been meant
for me. It ended with the words,
‘Take care of yourself’, so I did.”
She decided to send the letter
to other women, asking them to
interpret it and report back. They
ranged from an anthropologist
to a moral philosopher, a rapper,
an expert in women’s rights, a
nursery-school teacher, a lawyer,
a linguist, a magician. In the end,
she consulted 107 women,
photographed each one reading
a copy of the email, and then
organised all their analysis into an
exhibition and a book. By this time,
any emotional damage she might
have suffered had disappeared.
“When I did it, I avoided all
emotion,” she says. “I stopped
suffering the minute I got the
project [as] it took the place of the
suffering. It’s not any more about a
man leaving me, it’s a project about
a man who leaves a woman... The
problem is not me any more, the
problems are artistic problems,
how to show it, how to say it.”
Her other relationships haven’t
escaped scrutiny. In True Stories
she tells the story of “The Husband”
about a man she met in a bar in
New York in 1989. A year later, he
arrived in Paris. A year after that,
they drove across America. And on
January 18 1992, they were married
at a drive-thru wedding in Las
Vegas. By this time, the relationship
was more or less over. In the film,
their thoughts about each other,
relayed in subtitles and voice-overs,
grow increasingly bitter: she is still
keen to be married – he wants to
escape. It’s both excruciating and
funny, and arouses all the fears
and expectations involved in
commitment. By October, they’d
agreed a divorce.
From the series The Hotel, ‘Room 24 (March 2)’, 1981 She has been with her current
Sophie Calle: ‘I am still surprised to receive a photo prize’ partner for 15 years, although they
live separately. “Two houses. Yes.
And we have very strict rules. We
never spend more than one week in
a row together. We never do trips
together that are more than a week.
We see each other a lot. We speak.
And we do most things separately.”
Then, in case I’m about to ask
©SOPHIE CALLE/ADAGP, PARIS, 2019 COURTESY OF THE ARTIST; ©2019 ARTISTS RIGHTS SOCIETY (ARS), NEW YORK/
her more about him: “I am not
allowed to speak about him,
ADAGP, PARIS; FLORIAN KLEINEFENN; SUITE VENITIENNE PUBLISHED BY SIGLIO, 2015; CLAXTON PROJECTS
otherwise he leaves me.” She
shrugs, “It’s very practical because
if one day I stopped loving him,
I know what to do. I just have to
write a story about him...”
She has never wanted children.
“I hate children. I am bored by
them. I am not moved by children.
All my friends, when they have
children, I stop seeing them. It’s just
that there is no room.”
I’m surprised that she doesn’t
find children appealing – or at
least interesting. “No. I was never
attracted. I see a cat, I go on the
floor, I behave like an eight-year-
old, I run after it. If I see a cat, the
world stops existing around me.”
And if a four-year-old came in?
“I would want to throw up.”
She offers a partial explanation.
“When my brother was born, I was
From the series The Blind, ‘My son’, 1986 11, and my life changed. Before, I
was very free. I could go round and
sleep at my girlfriend’s. But then
View of the exhibition Sophie Calle/Prenez soin de vous I became my brother’s babysitter.
at the French Pavilion of the 52nd Venice Biennale, 2007 And my mother gave my cat ▶
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 25
 From the series Because, ‘The White Line’, 2018
◀ away. She was afraid it might hurt
my brother. So I was stuck at home
[looking] after my brother. I lost
my freedom when he was born.”
Even earlier than that: “My mother
had entrusted me to a group of
children. I was the youngest and
they had to get rid of me: that
was their game… I ran after them,
shouting, ‘Wait for me! Wait for
me!” This is another excerpt from
True Stories, opposite a snapshot
of little Sophie on a promenade.
Both her parents are dead now:
her mother died in 2006, her father
in 2015. Her mother had always
wanted to star in one of her
daughter’s pieces and when it
happened, it was at the very end of
her life. She had cancer and had
been given three months to live.
“I decided to stay with her.
Everybody said that when people
are going to die, they wait for you to
go out [of the room], and I wanted
to be there at the moment that she
died. Also, my mother had asked
me to put on a piece of Mozart when
she died, so I wanted to be there to
put the music on. I stayed with her.
I slept there.
“But then I realised I couldn’t be
there 24 hours a day watching her.
So I decided to put a camera next
to the bed. And when she saw the
camera, she said, ‘Finally.’
“She liked the camera, because
she felt that when I was not there,
I was there in a way. I know some
of her friends were a little shocked,
26
but I didn’t care. She wanted
it. I wanted it. My brother was
OK with it. But I never thought
I would use it. I did it for myself,
to look at it and see if she had
told me something.”
And did she? “I don’t know
because I could never watch [all the
footage]. I only watched the last
hour.” And in the last hour, things
didn’t turn out as planned. “I didn’t
see the death,” she says. “I couldn’t
catch it. I realised there was this
strange moment between life and
death, where I could not see…
There was a nurse with me, and my
cousin, and we touched here and
we touched there and we couldn’t
figure out if she was dead or alive.”
The footage showed it had
taken 11 minutes for her to decide
whether or not to put on the music.
Afterwards, she decided that she
could make something with those
11 minutes. She added a text and
worked the word “souci”, the last
her mother had spoken – “Ne vous
faites pas de souci” (“Don’t worry”)
– into a film and an installation.
When she showed it at the Palais
de Tokyo in Paris in 2010 she took
her father along. “He was the first to
see it and I said, ‘Is it OK? I am going
to show my mother dying?” And he
said, ‘Yes, it’s absolutely OK.’
“And I was laughing, because I
knew my father, so I said: ‘Can I do
the same with you when you die?’
And he said, ‘Are you crazy?’ They
were absolute opposites. To do this
about my mother was an act of
love. Had I done the same with my
father, it would be an act of war.”
So much of Calle’s work concerns
death, I wondered what she felt
about growing older. “I never
thought about my age before.
And now I have to. But I am not
anxious. I am not afraid of getting
short of ideas because I could
accept to stop.
“When my father died, I had no
more ideas. I was paralysed. So I
said to all my friends, you know,
it’s fine. I am going to do something
else. I can survive with the money
I have… I pretended to everybody
that it was OK. Then my ideas came
back. I said to my boyfriend, ‘You
know, I think I have new ideas…’”
These days, she does most of her
work on her laptop, and she scrolls
down to show me the project in
progress for her US show, which
opens in California later this
month, entitled Because.
“I usually do photos only when
I have a rule of the game,” she says.
“I never take them randomly, I don’t
walk with a camera. But sometimes,
like everybody, I see something –
with my phone generally – and I
take it. But I never know what to do
with these photos because they have
no stories behind them.”
Nevertheless, they all had a
reason to be taken. And, looking
at them again, other reasons came
into her head, building up layers of
memory around the very simple
shots. She decided to turn it into
a kind of game, hiding the images
behind a curtain with the reasons
embroidered on it, inviting the
viewer to read, then lift the curtain,
then think and look again.
The combination of texts and
random pictures is surprisingly
effective. In some ways, it is more
revealing of her inner life than
many of her more complicated
projects. One shows a white line
painted on shingle leading out into
the sea, with the text “Because of
the temptation to follow it”.
I wondered if regret plays any
part in her work. “So far, in my
work, I have no regrets. I like to
look back but I don’t look back out
of nostalgia.” If she has been drawn
to ideas about absence and about
death, it has been “just as a poetic
element, not out of sadness.
“I don’t think I’m revealing
anything personal in a way. It’s
like I said before. A man left me.
Absolutely. Everybody that visited
my show, everybody has been left
one day. There is no information
about me. We just know he left me
with a mail. So in many of those
stories, they are one moment – as I
said – they are not my life. They are
one minute of an event that I select.
I never feel I am revealing anything.
No. People think they know me.
But they know nothing.”
“Sophie Calle. Because” runs at
the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco
from January 23 to March 21.
“Because” is published by
Editions Xavier Barral, €36
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020

Observations
Recently I read an article online saying that
the ozone hole will be completely fixed by about
2030. But wait – was this the same ozone hole
that made me lose sleep for decades and was
going to destroy all life on earth? Yes, it was: the
ozone hole, quietly fixed, its repair meriting a
single article in a Monday science section.
I thought back to the early 1980s when acid
rain was the bogeyman, murdering Germany’s
forests while triggering mass extinctions and
dissolving Rome’s Coliseum. I thought, “Hmmm
– whatever happened to acid rain? I haven’t even
thought of it in at least a decade.” The answer?
It was fixed.
A few weeks later I was at a large dinner in
California where I ventured this idea: “We fixed
the ozone hole and acid rain. I think we might
actually be able to fix global warming.” Never
Noptimism have I endured such a shitstorm as quickly as
what happened there. Allow me to paraphrase:
“How dare you try and say that global warming
can be fixed. Who the hell do you think you
Why does everyone give
are?” “People like you make me sick. Global
optimists a hard time? warming can never be fixed.” “Your supercilious
Douglas Coupland puts the attitude is loathsome. The moment you start
case for more positivity thinking global warming can be fixed is the
moment it can never be fixed.”
OK, I wasn’t expecting this.
The dinner guests were expressing a new form
of ecological logic: “We can only have hope if we
have no hope,” or, “The moment we have hope,
we’ll let our guards down and then we really will
lose the war.” But wait, you already decided in
advance the war was unwinnable to begin with.
I don’t think this phenomenon has a name yet.
Let’s call it noptimism.
My noptimistic inquisition took place in
November 2019, the same month and year
in which the 1982 film Blade Runner was set –
the jewel in the crown of dystopian cinematic
futures: dark, perpetually raining and plagued
with androids. And yet there we were in
November 2019 and… if nothing else, 2019 was
definitely not the mess it was once supposed to
have been. The sky is still blue and people have
more access to information than ever. Engines
are running. Wheat fields aren’t growing thin.
It’s a decreasingly nuclear era – and yet there’s
all of this harsh noptimism going on.
28
‘In my lifetime I’ve seen acid
rain and the ozone hole fixed,
so I truly believe we can
and will fix global warming’
This got me to wondering, why does everyone
shit on optimists? You can do or say anything
you want to optimists without any repercussion,
and that seems really screwed up. An optimist’s
sole crime is that they possess hope.
In November I had not one, but three people
younger than myself by a few decades email
to ask if I’d go out for a coffee with them. They
were, all of them, at that magic age when it
dawns on you that the life you have is the only
life you’re going to get. Each of them had a
slight variation on a common theme: what is
happening to us, where is it going, and how can I
feel less afraid for myself and my family?
But what I really noticed was the way that
each of these individuals was being way too
emotionally charged about the world in a way
I don’t remember people being when I was
their age. Part of my advice to them was that
1) Things are going to be fine; 2) They really are
going to be fine; 3) Negativity is a stupid person’s
way of trying to look smart without actually
being smart; 4) In my lifetime I’ve seen acid rain
and the ozone hole fixed and so I truly believe
we can and will fix global warming; 5) Stop
spending so much time online. The new global
economy isn’t about data – it’s about who can
hijack your emotions and how they can profit
from that; 6) The next time you feel you’re
getting pissed off or verklempt about something,
stop. Pull back. Be honest and be critical and
try and determine who did this to you and why.
Forget data; emotional manipulation is our
new cultural currency, and hyperpolarisation
is merely a subset of hyperemotion. This isn’t
a new idea, but it does seem to be increasingly
evident with each day.
To bring this all back to global warming and
the dinner party, someone tried to “OK boomer”
me, to which I said: “I detested my allotted
generation so much that I invented one of my
own. So, I’m definitely on your side, but if you
can’t imagine hope, then why not just go jump
off a cliff with all the other noptimists?”
To be a noptimist means that someone’s
calculatedly frightened you and owned you in
the process. Go to war, but do so knowing you
can eventually win. There’s nothing wrong
with that. Illustration by James Joyce
29
 Out of Office
James May

‘Screwdrivers
and chisels
really excite me’

When he’s not travelling the world, or driving fast
cars, the television presenter has discovered
the slow joys of woodworking. He’s even cleared
a corner of his garage for a workshop, he tells
Simon Usborne. Photographs by Gareth Phillips
I
t would be easy to suppose that James May
and Jeremy Clarkson, his co-presenter for the
past 20 years, are pretty similar. Both men
come from middle-class entrepreneurial fam-
ilies and mostly grew up in northern England.
Both started as journalists and spun motor-
ing columns into big-money TV careers. Now
kicking the tyres of 60 (Clarkson gets there this
year, May is three years younger), both are still
mucking about on telly, with their faded jeans
and blokey banter.
But Captain Slow, as May is known on The Grand
Tour, the Amazon series that emerged after Top
Gear imploded in 2015 when Clarkson punched a
BBC producer, is quick to set me straight. “I think
we probably do look very similar, if you condense
it into a bullet-point CV, but I disagree with Jeremy
about everything,” he says. “I mean, he likes to
make out that I’m really old-fashioned and living
in the ’50s but I think that’s transference – it’s the
other way round.”
May becomes animated, even removing his
hands from his jeans pockets for a moment; he
is wearing them with an orange jumper and blue
Adidas trainers. “Jeremy is very reactionary and
conservative in his views and I think he’s slightly
terrified about the decline of the class system.
He likes country sports and, you know, tramping
around in tweeds shooting at things. I’d rather go to
an art gallery or do some woodworking.”
TodayMayhasinvitedmetohisworkshop,which
occupies a corner of his three-car garage. Sawdust
thinly coats a Porsche 911 Carrera, which is parked James May at his
nexttohisbenches.There’salsotheFerrari458Spe-
ciale that May bought (starting price at the time:
Wiltshire weekend
home, which houses
£208,090) after Clarkson’s “fracas” briefly left ▶ his wood workshop

30 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020

FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 31
 Out of Office
James May
◀ both men unemployed. May had the garage built
when he and his partner Sarah renovated their
weekend home in a village near Salisbury. It has
underfloor heating, a bathroom, pop art on the
walls and a large TV on which May watches You-
Tube videos of more accomplished men making
stuff (they are all men). Woodworking provides
simple furniture for the house and an emotional
outlet which he attempts to nail down for me:
“When I’m in here I’m not thinking about anything
but what I’m making, and I think that might be
part of the appeal. I’m not getting angry about the
election or the world of TV – I’m just communing
with the wood.”
Then there are the tools. “Screwdrivers and
chisels really excite me,” May says, as if address-
ing a support group. “I know it’s weird but if you
take something like this…” He pulls a bullnose
plane from a drawer, cradling it like a little bird. “I
mean, what a thing of beauty. And see here, this is
a fenced rebate plane.” He clamps an offcut to his
bench and strokes the tool along its edge, creating a
flat groove. A coil of shavings rises from the blade.
M
ayhasalwayslikedmakingthings.
‘I’m an insomniac so He recently dusted off the square
and marking gauge he used in
I spend two hours woodwork classes at his Rother-
ham comprehensive. Born in
a night watching Bristol to an itinerant foundry
manager, he was into metalwork too, as well as the
people making and harpsichord,whichheplayedwhilestudyingmusic
at Lancaster University. He performed at medie-
mending things. It’s val banquets for cash at the weekends. After brief
stints at a Volvo dealership and as an NHS records
absolutely riveting’ officer, he then became a magazine subeditor and
writer in the early 1980s.
In 1992, he was fired from Autocar magazine
after a prank in which the block capital letters that
began each page in an end of year round-up spelled
out a message that it was “a real pain in the arse” to
produce. The episode epitomises the slacker shtick
that appears to have guided May’s career. “I’ve
neverhadanambition,”hesays.Butheacceptsthat
there is some direction in his dilettantism. “I mean,
I spent a long time working long hours writing for
magazines.Somebodydidn’t just pluck meoffabus
stop and put me on Top Gear.”
May’s car columns led him first to Channel 4’s
Driven, in 1998, and to the original Top Gear, with
Clarkson, the following year. The sleepy show
had ticked over for almost 25 years when the BBC
scrapped it in 2001. A couple of years later, May,
then still in his thirties, joined Clarkson and co-
presenter Richard Hammond as the studio-based
reboot of the show looked like it was taking off.
New Top Gear became a noughties entertain-
ment juggernaut, turning its greying presenters
into unlikely global stars. May was making his
21st series when Clarkson got cross on location,
reportedly over the serving of cold meat rather
than steak. A suspension and resignations fol-
lowed, only for the trio to return in The Grand Tour
in 2016. Even Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s billionaire chief
executive, described the deal as “very, very, very
expensive”. May says he pockets less than people
32
imagine, but adds: “I mean, I haven’t been poor for
quite a while.”
Leaked viewing figures in 2018 showed that
The Grand Tour was attracting millions of new sub-
scribers to Amazon Prime. An arguably exhausted
formula still pays. But The Grand Tour has now
shuttered its studio in favour of longer, occasional
specials, leaving more time for May to spread his
wings. For James May: Our Man in Japan, which
streamed this month, he spent three months film-
ing in east Asia.
The show shares Grand Tour’s tone and Brit-
abroad faux pas, though May insists the haiku
masters he met were more amused than they
looked when he read them his own poem with its
scatological theme. But there are also glimpses
of the more thoughtful May, who has long loved
Japan and chose it as a destination. At one point,
he describes a sled-dog journey through the snowy
wastes of Hokkaido as “being like Prokofiev”,
before a clip shows him worrying with his crew
over whether the reference is too “intellectual and
pompous” (they go for Raymond Briggs instead).
The TV travelogue format is no stranger to
cliché, and sometimes cultural insensitivity. In
the most recent Grand Tour, Clarkson, wearing a
Che Guevara T-shirt, crashes his Vietnam war-era
US Navy patrol boat into a floating village on the
Mekong Delta.
May is wary of the dangers: “If a Japanese person
came to England and did a travel show about
Beefeaters, old pubs and morris dancing, I’d get
annoyed.” Yet he believes “you have to put a bit of
that [tradition] in Japan because they do have this
fantasticfusionoftheancientandmysticalwiththe
thoroughlymodernworld.Butyouneedtodomore
than that – and acknowledge that you’re not doing
a PhD dissertation.”
As he talks about the series, his first solo outing
for Amazon Prime, May seems happy to be doing
his own thing – to show that, after years of banter-
ing with Clarkson, there is more to him than the
writer Caitlin Moran’s description that “he comes
across like someone who was at public school with
the younger brother of someone from Pink Floyd”.
But if there is quiet ambition under the surface,
May appears still to be adjusting to the status his
on-screen success has brought him. His house is
very nice, but it’s no palace. He and Sarah, a dance
critic, bought it for less than £800,000 five years
ago. They are now rebuilding the home that they
have shared in Hammersmith, west London, for
20 years.
In Wiltshire, May passed up a much grander
house for sale that he could easily have bought.
“The people there now are terribly nice and mock
me for living in my cottage,” he says. He blames
rural imposter syndrome (“I always argued the
countryside was for driving through”) but adds:
“If I’m really honest, deep down I don’t think I’m
allowed to have a big posh house.” Why? “Because
I’m not a big posh person. I’m supposed to have a
reasonably modest house.”
May is not without an extravagant side. There
are the cars. Every few weekends he flies the plane
he keeps at a nearby airfield before egg and chips
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
 James May’s
favourite woodworkers
Paul Sellers
The Stockport boy, now 70,
has spent much of his career
in the US, where two of his
pieces are in the White House
permanent collection. Now
based in Oxfordshire, the
“lifestyle woodworker” and
hand-tool specialist has a slick
YouTube channel (below) with
more than 45 million views.
His most watched: “How to
make a Mortise and Tenon Joint”
(2.1m views). Paulsellers.com
YOUTUBE
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
Rob Cosman
The Canadian woodworker and
tool maker seizes the therapeutic
potential in communing with
wood and holds regular free
classes for wounded American
and Canadian veterans. From
his family-run workshop and
tool store in New Brunswick, he
also presents online classes via
his popular YouTube channel.
His most watched: “Milling
a Birdseye Log” (623,000
views). Robcosman.com
Richard Maguire
The Lincolnshire hand-tool
woodworker left school aged 14
and trained as an apprentice to
his own father. Until recently, he
made workbenches in ash that
were beautiful pieces of furniture
in their own right. He now
runs The English Woodworker
educational site and channel
with his designer partner Helen
from their home in Lincolnshire.
His most watched: “Hand Cutting
Rebates” (222,000 views).
Theenglishwoodworker.com
back at the cafe. “Aviation is a very expensive
way to have a cup of tea,” he adds. Turbo-charged
paychecks also provided him with the freedom to
explore forgotten pastimes during the “Steakgate”
hiatus. And here we are, inspecting a mortise and
tenon joint in tulipwood. It’s part of a hall bench on
which May will sit down to put on his wellies.
May only uses hand tools. “Doing dovetail joints
that would take 10 minutes with a table router
might take a day or two, but it’s the process that’s
nice about it,” he says. He likes to feel the wood,
citing George Sturt, the Victorian writer on rural
crafts. “The timber was far from being prey, a
helpless victim, to a machine,” Sturt wrote in
The Wheelwright’s Shop. “Rather it would lend its
own special virtues to the man who knew how to
humour it.”
May has found more contemporary inspira-
tion on YouTube’s burgeoning roster of how-to
maker videos. The web is awash with baking,
pottery-makingandglass-blowingcontent.“I’man
insomniac and spend at least two hours a night in
bed watching people making and mending things,”
he says. “It’s absolutely riveting.”
That Captain Slow covets old tools and spent
about 50 hours making a simple box for art sup-
plies is not surprising. But his outlook otherwise
goes firmly against the grain. There are no vintage
cars here – or slow ones. As well as the Ferrari and
Porsche, there’s a beach buggy he rescued from a
shoot in Namibia, a hydrogen-powered Toyota out
front and a Tesla in London. He updates his iPhone
at every opportunity, owns about five iPads and
is about to install Alexa throughout the house so
that he and Sarah can communicate when he’s in
the workshop.
As he is wont to tell Clarkson, he is more modern
than his on-screen self-caricature. “I think history
is fascinating but I have no desire to go to the past
and I don’t think the ’70s were marvellous – they
were terrible,” he says. Even now, as global crises
compete to make us gloomy, May clings to a faith in
“the basic desire of humanity to survive, get along
and have a nice time”.
He’s also looking ahead. “I don’t know how long
I’ve got left in TV,” he says. “I suspect I’m getting a
bit decrepit and I have to be man enough to walk
away with dignity. I don’t want to disintegrate in
public.” I suggest there are plenty of older, busy
presenters. “Well Attenborough is 150, but he’s
a serious man and an absolute authority. A lot of
what I do is clowning around and there comes a
point where you can’t do that any more.”
As well as TV, May says he’ll give up fast cars and
flying. He’ll learn to paint and play the piano well.
And do more woodwork. He wants to get a lathe he
owns out of storage and – eventually – make a harp-
sichord. He’ll reacquaint himself with François
Couperin, a French baroque composer he used to
play.“Thatwillprobablytakemeacoupleofyears,”
he says. “But I’d love to be able to sit there and
play Couperin on a harpsichord that I had made.”
There’ll be a YouTube video for that, too.
“James May: Our Man in Japan” is available
to stream now on Amazon Prime
33
 Who ate all
the peas?
Simon Kuper charts the changing diet of top
footballers, from pints, pies and pizza to protein shakes
and veganism, and asks why some old refuelling habits
are hard to break. Illustrations by Dan Woodger
I
t’s remarkable what footballers
used to consume, especially in
Britain. Brian Clough, revered
Nottingham Forest manager from
1975 to 1993, sometimes handed
out beers in the team bus before the
game. Mick “Sumo” Quinn, feared
Newcastle striker of the 1990s,
inspired the fan chant, “He’s fat, he’s
round, he’s worth a million pounds”,
and titled his autobiography Who
Ate All the Pies? Until the mid-1990s
Arsenal offered players a full
English breakfast before training.
On one postmatch bus journey, the
team held an eating competition
won by centre-back Steve Bould,
who consumed nine dinners.
The game has changed. We know
much more than just a decade ago
about what footballers should eat.
Many – though certainly not all
– now actually eat those things.
Meanwhile, their feeding support
structures have burgeoned into a
mini-industry. One sunny day in
Barcelona last October, nutritionists
from 35 countries, “performance
chefs” (a new job in football) and
players’ private chefs gathered in an
auditorium beside the Camp Nou
stadium for FC Barcelona’s Sports
Nutrition Conference. The largest
national delegation was British.
During the breaks, these fit-
looking young people served their
fellow delegates the delicious
“functional protein muffins” and
non-alcoholic “Bloody Marys” that
clubs now try to feed their players.
Yet listening to the nutritionists,
you realised: getting footballers to
34
eat healthily is as hard as getting
your children to eat healthily.
Even after Arsène Wenger
became Arsenal manager in 1996
and led a reform of the English
game’s most egregious refuelling
habits, football nutrition remained
unimaginative at best. The standard
prematch meal around Europe
became plain pasta (for carbs) and
chicken (for protein). For lunchtime
kick-offs, players would have to
force this down at breakfast. After
the game, almost every changing-
room took a pizza delivery.
Even innovative Arsenal only
appointed their first, part-time,
nutritionist in 2009. A year later,
Barcelona’s then manager Pep
Guardiola, a rail-thin health fanatic,
appointed Antonia Lizárraga as club
nutritionist, just the second person
in that job in the whole Spanish first
division. The game’s conventional
wisdom then, she told me, was:
“The most important thing is not
nutrition, but that the ball goes in.”
But football has since become
ever more professional. Studies
show that the distance covered in
sprints and high-intensity runs has
risen for all positions, especially
in the Champions League, so
footballers need ever more reserves
of muscle glycogen, FC Porto’s
nutritionist Vitor Hugo Teixeira
told the Barcelona conference.
“The demands are always getting
greater,” AS Roma’s former England
centre-back Chris Smalling told
me. “We are playing more games,
but also players are getting ▶
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 35
 ◀ stronger, faster. Now it’s a case
of trying to find those fine margins
where you can improve.” During
nine years at Manchester United,
Smalling watched the club build a
department of multiple nutritionists
from different countries, with one
person specialised in postmatch
protein shakes, another in injury
recovery and so on.
All English Premier League
clubs now employ nutritionists.
In perhaps the ultimate sign of the
game’s turnround, pizza and pasta
were banned from Italy’s team
camp during Euro 2016 (except if
made from khorasan wheat). Xavier
Rousseau, chef to France’s winning
team at last year’s World Cup,
preached “the rule of three: three
meals a day and three food groups.
Carbohydrates for energy, proteins
to repair the muscles, and fruit and
vegetables to protect health.”
In fact, there is very little scientific
evidence that nutrition affects
football performance. That’s partly
because there is not much medical
research into the small population
group of top-class footballers.
Their bodies are too unusual to
be relevant to most public-health
issues. Barcelona have discovered
that their athletes carry several
“paradoxical biomarkers” – ones
that are unhealthy for ordinary
mortals but beneficial to top-class
athletes. For instance, during the
season their players have high
cholesterol. Footballers’ needs
are unique too. If a player pulls
his hamstring, he’ll miss crucial
matches; if the average office worker
pulls theirs, they’ll barely notice.
Nutrition is, however, one of the
few factors in performance that
can be controlled, so clubs are now
doing their utmost to get footballers
to eat the right foods at the right
time. Here are some of the sport’s
current best practices.
• Caffeine is football’s favourite
prematch supplement. It
improves physical, cognitive and
technical performance (including
passing accuracy), according
to Sports Nutrition for Football, a
booklet published by Barcelona’s
“Innovation Hub”. The guide
recommends tea or coffee at pre-
training breakfast, and caffeinated
sports drinks on matchdays.
• High-fibre vegetables such as
broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower and
Brussels sprouts should be eaten
36
Creatine bonbons
• 25 dates
• 120g crunchy peanut
butter (100 per cent)
• 20g pure cocoa powder
• 30g creatine
1 — Chop and blend all the
ingredients together in a food
processor. Form bonbons weighing
approximately 40g and refrigerate.
Recipes courtesy of the
Barcelona Innovation Hub
twice a week but – given that they
are gassy and take time to digest –
not immediately before taking the
field, Barça advise.
• Beetroot juice boosts nitrate
levels, though not everyone likes it.
The conference was shown a video
of a Benfica player downing a shot,
grimacing and washing the taste
away with water.
• A player with a high workload
needs lots of carbs. If he doesn’t
have a high workload (perhaps
because he’s injured), lots of carbs
will make him fat. If teams insist on
consuming their prematch carbs
as pasta, they should eat it al dente,
quite hard, as soft-cooked pasta
will cause players’ sugar levels to
surge and then fall; and don’t add
butter or cheese. But sweet potato
is preferable, says French sports
nutritionist Thomas Rozé.
• Inflammation of body tissues
tends to increase over the season.
February to the end of May is
the period Barcelona define as
“high competition”, with lots of
matches, travel and sleep loss. In
this phase, players should ramp
Gatorade caipirinha
mocktail
• 2 Granny Smith apples
• 3 limes
• 30g non-alcoholic caipirinha mixer
• 750ml citrus Gatorade
• 60g coconut sugar
• Crushed ice
1 — Wash the fruit. Cut the limes into 24
pieces each and the apples into even
cubes. Stir together the caipirinha mixer,
citrus Gatorade and coconut sugar.
2 — Fill glasses with the ice and fruit
pieces. Then fill with the caipirinha.
up anti-inflammatory foods such
as broccoli, cherries and bone
broth rather than taking football’s
traditional painkilling drugs.
• The protein recovery shake after
training, often personalised for each
player, has become a football ritual.
• Within an hour of a match ending,
players should eat proteins to help
damaged muscle fibres recover. The
body is most receptive to nutrients
immediately after exercise.
Importantly, too, postmatch is
a time when the club have some
control over what their players
consume. That is why Juventus
have a dining table in their home
changing room, while away sides
often depart the stadium in a team
bus equipped with a quality kitchen
complete with top-class chef.
It helps that many footballers
have been infected by the new
societal obsession with nutrition.
They try to control their stress by
managing their own intake and by
following eating routines, rather
than simply feeling like victims of
injuries and luck, Lizárraga says.
She helps Barça players find private
chefs (almost every first-teamer has
one), and talks to the cooks about
personalised daily menus.
Some footballers are even
becoming vegans. Smalling
converted nearly two years
ago, inspired by his wife Sam,
who persuaded him to watch
documentaries and read books
on the topic. The ethics of meat-
eating bothered him but his initial
prompt was health, he says. Like
many athletes, he suffered from
tendonitis, the swelling of tendons
after injury. Once he cut down on
inflammatory red meats, he found
his symptoms improved.
When Smalling eventually went
fully vegan, he was anxious about
confessing this but United’s chef
was immediately receptive and
even bought some vegan recipe
books. Scepticism of veganism in
sport began fading away decades
ago, when Carl Lewis and Martina
Navratilova triumphed with
entirely or largely plant-based
diets. Straight after Smalling signed
for Roma last summer, the club’s
cook and nutritionist came up to
him to say, “We know you are plant-
based.” Nowadays he often finds
fellow players quizzing him about
veganism. “A lot of those guys are
having the same questions that I
had when I started transitioning.”
It’s no coincidence that
Smalling converted in his late
twenties: typically the age when
players start taking nutrition
seriously. “Only at 20 does your
body function perfectly,” mused
Alfredo di Stéfano, star of the
1950s, and younger footballers
often feel, with some justification,
indestructible. With age, they
suffer more injuries, take longer to
recover and start worrying about
extending their careers. Lionel
Messi, long an aficionado of the
Argentine breaded-steak-eggs-ham-
parmesan-and-mozzarella dish
la milanesa napolitana, realised by
his late twenties that he was battling
decline. Sometimes vomiting on the
field, and exhausted throughout
the 2014 World Cup, he turned to
Italian nutritionist Giuliano Poser,
who made him ditch his favourite
postmatch pizza and warned him
off sugars.
Messi adopted a vegan diet
during the season, lost 3kg and
BECKY LAWTON
now, at 32, remains pre-eminent.
He says: “If you want to get better,
you must train hard every day, but
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
 without the right nutrition it will
not be possible.” His rival Cristiano
Ronaldo adapted his already
rigorous diet in 2016, dropping from
82kg to 79kg to regain some speed.

Y
et for all the sport’s
nutritional advances,
most footballers still eat
suboptimally. Graeme
Close, professor of human
physiology at Liverpool John
Moores University, who has worked
for the England rugby union team
and for various English football
clubs, says rugby players tend
to take nutrition more seriously.
Every England rugby player has an
individual performance plan with a
nutritional component; footballers
often don’t. Many footballers,
especially younger ones, simply
don’t know what to eat or are fed by
someone who doesn’t understand
sporting nutrition, says Close.
Some players eat fast food. Some
will refuse the crucial restorative
postmatch meal, saying they
aren’t hungry. Some even balk at
drinking a bottle of water at half-
time, although a marathon runner
might drink 11 bottles during a race.
Managers can try prohibition (when
Guardiola took over at Manchester
City in 2016, he banned pizzas),
but they cannot break into players’
mansions and force-feed them. Arsenal players Spartan diets. After all, footballers Most football nutritionists,
Even players who are interested use less energy per match than powerless to dictate, try to
in nutrition might favour foods that once held an eating rugby players, not to mention educate players. Diogo Ferreira, a
make their bodies look good rather competition won cyclists riding a Tour de France. nutritionist who worked for Benfica,
than help performance. Female Clubs and nutritionists can be lists some promising methods:
footballers have their own eating by Steve Bould, left looking on in helpless horror. showing a player his blood-test
issues, says Nicky Keay, a sports who consumed Mickael Naya, one of four private results, pointing out deficiencies
and dance endocrinologist. Like nine dinners chefs fired by Barcelona’s forward and then drawing up a diet plan with
most women, they experience social Ousmane Dembélé, told the him; getting a full-time nutritionist
pressure to be thin – and possibly Le Parisien newspaper: “Ousmane to eat with the players and make
face financial pressure too if they is a nice boy but he doesn’t have “informal interventions” during
are endorsing fashion brands. his life under control. He’s always meals; giving players supermarket
Meanwhile, nutritionists have competitive game. “Football is such living with his uncle and best tours and cooking classes; printing
little power inside most clubs. The a skill-based sport,” he replied. In friend, who don’t dare tell him nutritional information on their
biggest influencer of footballers’ rugby, improving body mass and anything. It’s a bumpy life. I’ve food trays; instituting obligatory
eating habits, says the Barça’s fitness might compensate somewhat never seen alcohol, but he doesn’t hydration breaks or group meals;
guide, is the head coach. Often for a skill deficiency. The same at all respect his times for rest, banning phones during meals;
he is a reactionary who disdains applies in endurance sports. But there is no high-level structure putting a fruit basket in changing
nutrition and who won’t let the club as the English football manager around him.” rooms before training.
nutritionist sit in on team meals, Harry Redknapp said in 2008: “If Spanish newspapers have Yet in the end, clubs often
even presuming he knows who the you can’t pass the ball properly, a reported on Dembélé’s love of have to compromise on nutrition.
nutritionist is. One nutritionist bowl of pasta’s not going to make fast food. Messi publicly warned Postmatch, many still serve the
reports being given just four that much difference.” In this game, his teammate: “He must make traditional cheesy pizza. It may
minutes to address the team about the talent rules and sometimes the the transition and become more be packed with saturated fat and
food and encountering a club owner talent can afford to eat whatever it professional. And I hope he has salts, but compared with what some
who tried to ban salmon from the wants – often without noticeable less bad luck with injuries.” But players are eating at home, it’s
team menu because he’d heard it impact on performance. despite Messi’s obvious insinuation, health food.
was fattening. Many younger players, in Dembélé’s muscular injuries may
I asked Close why bad nutrition particular, still seem able to play really have been due to bad luck Simon Kuper is an FT columnist
persisted in such a moneyed, world-class football on less than and body type, not bad food. and author of “Soccernomics”

FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 37

 Tahini creamed chard

T
he Parker House roll was Serves four 1 — To make the tahini
invented in the 1870s at the sauce, place all the
For the tahini sauce ingredients in a blender
Parker House Hotel in Boston. • 200g tahini paste and blend until smooth.
The hotel also served the first • 3 tbs extra virgin
Boston cream pie – which is not olive oil 2 — Tear away the leafy
a pie at all but a cake – and it’s • 1 tsp ground cumin parts of the chard stalks,
where John F Kennedy proposed • 1 tsp salt wash well and set aside.
to Jacqueline Bouvier in 1953. • 1 garlic clove, minced Dice the stems into small
• Juice of half a lemon cubes, wash and strain.
Across the Charles river, in pretty Cambridge, • 150ml cold water
there are two of the world’s best universities, one • Salt to taste 3 — Heat the olive oil over
of the world’s best bookstores and a restaurant a medium heat in a very
serving dishes that should become future Boston • 2 large bunches of Swiss large saucepan. Add the
classics. Ana Sortun’s Oleana was one of the first chard: green, rainbow or crushed garlic cloves and
restaurants to bring contemporary Middle Eastern a mix. Once separated, diced onions and sauté
should produce 400g for about eight minutes.
food to the west. Many chefs followed, including stalks, 400g leaves
us, but few have done it quite so well. • 4 tbs olive oil 4 — Add the stalk dice and
The produce at Oleana is superb. Much of it • 4 garlic cloves, crushed ½ tsp of salt and continue
is grown by Ana’s husband on their farm and it is • 1-2 large onions, peeled to sauté for another 10-12
treated with the lightest of touches in the kitchen. and diced (about 200g) minutes or until the stalks
From the lemon chicken with za’atar and cheesy • ½ tsp salt are very soft. Add the
• 2 garlic cloves, minced minced garlic and washed
pancakes to the candied, sesame-crusted cashews • 2 tbs roasted sesame green leaves, increase the
that were sprinkled over our dessert, all the food seeds to sprinkle heat to high, mix well,
was dream-worthy. But it was the simplest over top (optional) cover the pan and cook
dish that had us pining to go back to Boston: for about two minutes
Swiss chard with tahini that was so good, such a until the leaves are wilted.

Chard wonderful marriage of flavour and texture, that

we couldn’t get it of our heads.
So we wrote to Ana for the recipe and she
5 — Remove from the
heat and mix in the tahini

feelings
sauce. Sprinkle with
supplied it, because she is not just a classy cook toasted sesame seeds
but a classy person too. Here it is pretty much and serve.
as we received it, simple and perfect. At Oleana,
they serve it as a mezze, which you would be wise
to do. It can also be a side to roasted meat or fish
– lemony chicken would work particularly well.
Or do as we do and have this beautiful dish all on
its own, with chard fresh from the farmers’
market. A real classic.

By Itamar Srulovich. Recipe by Sarit Packer

honeyandco@ft.com

Photographs by Patricia Niven

38 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020

FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 21/22 2019 39
 Jancis
Robinson
Wine
Mr Merlot’s new adventures
C
arlo Ferrini, 65, is
one of the celebrated
winemaking consultants
who have been so vital
to the Italian wine scene for the
past few decades – possibly the
most celebrated. Three times
the Florentine has been awarded
winemaker of the year. In the late
20th century he became known
as Mr Merlot because he was
popularly supposed to recommend
adding the plump French grape
to flesh out the notoriously bony
structure of his native Tuscany’s
signature Sangiovese.
When reminded of this recently
by Stefan Pegatzky of Germany’s
Fine Wine Magazine, Ferrini said,
in his mild-mannered way, that in
fact he prefers Merlot’s Bordeaux
blending partner Cabernet
Sauvignon, but he stands by the
advice he used to give. “We needed
the French grape varieties in the
1980s and 1990s because we didn’t
have our own viticultural expertise
and we didn’t yet understand our
own terroirs. When I first went
to Bordeaux in the early 1980s,
I felt like a viticultural illiterate.
“But by the end of the 1990s,
I felt confident and calm. This
century we have created our own
culture of vineyard management,
thanks to the mistakes of the
late 20th century. Then it was
necessary to use French varieties
but nowadays we don’t need
anything from France, neither
from the point of view of vine-
growing nor winemaking. All
Italian regions are able – and want
– to express themselves, both in
terms of terroir and local grapes.”
As evidence of this general,
healthy trend in Italy, he can
now point to the wines of his own
personal projects, in Montalcino
in southern Tuscany and Etna
in Sicily. They express their
geographical origins eloquently
and could scarcely be less like
the turbocharged Franco-Italian
monsters that were so beloved by
the powerful Italian wine guides
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
As imagined by Leon Edler
Ferrini favourites
UK prices from Lea & • Giodo 2012 Brunello
Sandeman are per
bottle in a mixed dozen.
Single bottles cost a
few pounds more.
• Giodo 2010 Brunello
• Giodo Toscana
Rosso 2016
£35.95 Lea & Sandeman
• Alberelli di Giodo
2016 Sicilia
£50.95 Lea & Sandeman
20 years ago. In those days,
sensitive tasters blamed the small
army of consultant winemakers
for wines that seemed to celebrate
France more than Italy.
There was a time when having
Ferrini, or one of his peers, on
board was worn by the Italian wine
producers who could afford them
as a badge of honour (it was also
seen as a shortcut to high scores
in the guides). Today, however,
as Padua-based wine writer
Walter Speller observes: “Wine
consultants like Ferrini are still
finding plenty of work, but the
difference is that producers who
avail themselves of consultants
are now much more discreet about
them. Using consultants like him
‘The celebrated Italian
consultant Carlo Ferrini has
been awarded winemaker
of the year three times’
is slowly being perceived as an
inability to make your own wine
and understand your own terroir.”
Notwithstanding the current
climate, Ferrini can still reel off a
long list of clients: San Leonardo
(a particularly fine Trentino
estate), Fonterutoli (ditto of
Chianti Classico), Brancaia, Brolio,
Poliziano, Terriccio… and assured
me that his way of working is
to have his own winemaking
team in each place and then
just drop in every few weeks.
He doesn’t have an obvious
winemaking successor, but his
daughter Bianca works with
di Montalcino
him. She is a retired water polo
£81.50 Lea & Sandeman player who studied economics
From $100 from various and agriculture. Ferrini says his
US wine retailers two personal wine estates are
being developed for her benefit.
di Montalcino His brand name is Giodo,
€195 Chateau & Estate
The Wine Gourmet,
an elided tribute to his mother
Tasting notes on
Mühlheim, Germany JancisRobinson.com. Giovanna (from Friuli in the far
DKr2,000 (£230), International stockists on north-east and possibly the reason
Supervin, Denmark Wine-searcher.com why, along with his imposing ▶
41
 ◀ stature and neat grey moustache,
he looks more Habsburg than
Italian) and his father Donatello.
He first made wine in 1979,
when he was 25, and worked at
the consortium of Chianti Classico
growers’ association for many
years, being particularly involved
with a search for better clones of
Sangiovese than the productive
but poor-quality ones that used
to dominate the Tuscan hills.
In 1992, Ferrini began his career
as a consultant and quickly built up
such an array of clients throughout
Italy that he says he never had
time to learn English. In 2000,
he managed to acquire a sliver
of Brunello vineyard just before
land prices around the fashionable
southern Tuscan hill town of
Montalcino started to skyrocket.
He waited until 2009 before making
a Giodo Brunello di Montalcino and
recently showed off every vintage
of this personal wine – up to a cask
sample of his 2015 – in London to a
range of wine writers from all over
Europe. “This is a very emotional
tasting for me,” he kept saying.
The 2010 and 2015 vintages were
particularly glorious, demonstrating
most eloquently the “elegance” he
claims to be looking for. Some of the
drier summers, such as the 2009
and the 2012, have left their traces
in slightly dry tannins on the finish.
Brunello is never cheap, but
a relative bargain is his Toscana
Rosso, which is made from the
same small estate but given a little
less oak ageing and is created to
be drunk younger. I really fell for
the beautifully fresh, energetic
42
2016 Toscana Rosso with its
suggestion of forest floor. MY ADDRESSES
My other favourite wine from
Ferrini’s presentation of Giodo’s
— NAPLES
output was also from 2016, the ELIA SEBREGONDI
debut vintage from another modest
CHEF/RESTAURATEUR
holding, this time on Mount Etna
in Sicily, which he describes as an
old man’s folly. When consulting
there he had come across some
tiny parcels of the ancient Nerello
Mascalese bush vines that push
their way through the lava-strewn
terraces on the mountain. He has
gradually assembled eight small
plots, totalling just 1.5ha of vines,
which are generally between 80
and 100 years old. The result is
— Naples has such a rich culinary heritage. Every time I go home I am
a wine called Alberelli di Giodo
captivated by its streets and churches, the charm of its people and its food.
– after the Italian for a vine that
grows like a bush, unsupported by — Start the day with an espresso from Caffè Mexico in Piazza Dante. The
wires – made in a client’s winery atmosphere is vibrant and the smell of the Passalacqua coffee is
near the village of Passopisciaro. extraordinary. Here the owners observe the tradition of the caffè sospeso,
The only snag is that, like many where you pay for an extra coffee as an anonymous act of charity for
of Etna’s finest vineyards, some someone who can’t afford one.
of Ferrini’s are above the official
— Wander through the streets of the historic centre towards Via dei
upper limit of the Etna DOC (that
Tribunali for lunch at Pizzeria Di Matteo. I recommend the arancino e
now looks to have been drawn too
frittatina, an egg-based dish similar to an omelette or crustless quiche.
low). Which means that Alberelli di
Giodo has to be sold with the much — In the Pignasecca area, you’ll find Pescheria Azzurra next to Naples’
less specific Sicilia denomination. biggest fish market (above left). Pull up a stool and try fresh raw fish, fish
Ferrini still nurses another frittura (fried fish) and tarallo, a popular Neapolitan snack made from lard,
wine ambition: to make a top- pepper and toasted almonds.
quality white wine from a grape
— In the early evening, Italians like to have an aperitivo. Gran Caffè
he thinks is seriously undervalued
Neapolis in Piazza San Domenico Maggiore makes brilliant cocktails. Sit
and misunderstood. “If I had
outside and soak up the beauty of the city.
20 more years, I would buy a
Verdicchio winery,” he told me, — You can’t visit Naples and not have pizza. For dinner, I recommend
referring to the classic grape of Pizzeria Starita (above right) on Via Materdei. Founded in 1901, it still uses
the Adriatic coast. Does a future traditional products for the fillings and toppings. You must try the stuffed
beckon as Mr Verdicchio? zucchini flowers and its speciality, the marinara alla Starita pizza.
More columns at ft.com/ Elia Sebregondi is co-founder and head chef at restaurant Officina 00
ALAMY
jancis-robinson in London; officina00.co.uk
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
 ANNA BU KLIEWER
I’D BE LOST WITHOUT...
A decanter
Decanting can transform wines, bringing out their latent
magic, but can also spell disaster, warns Dan Keeling
T
o decant, or not to decant? That is
often the question with fine wines.
My decanter has been responsible for
both epiphany and tragedy, bringing
out latent magic or hastening a rapid demise.
My first reason for using it is to remove
sediment from old wines. The second is to
maximise younger wines’ exposure to oxygen
in the hope of making them more expressive;
tannins soften, edges round and hidden
nuances are revealed. Extended aeration also
gives a glimpse of how they will develop.
Your sommelier should always ask
whether you would like a wine decanted,
but they don’t, as I found out last year at a
restaurant with a famous and well-priced
cellar in Baden, Germany. Ordering 1981
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Romanée-
St-Vivant at a fraction of the market value,
this sainted Pinot slowly met God in an
unrequested decanter while we finished our
whites. By the time it arrived in our glasses,
it was fit only for seasoning chips. Had it
shone brightly for 10 minutes before turning
into vinegar, as many delicate old wines do?
I’ll never know, but little wonder that many
top producers consider decanting their
wines sacrilege.
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
By contrast, one of my greatest vinous
epiphanies came from decanting a mighty
2000 Raveneau Chablis Grand Cru Les Clos.
Finding it devoid of all flavour or aroma at
the start of the meal, I returned it to the fridge
and opened other bottles. Five hours later,
I checked on it – and the kitchen filled with
comic book-style aroma-clouds of chalk and
seaweed so dense I could almost see them.
The Chablis had transformed into one of the
most evocatively perfumed whites I’ve drunk.
Decanters come in many shapes and sizes.
Though my two favourites were made 250
years apart, they share a beguiling simplicity.
For everyday use, I like a tall, narrow Zalto
Wine Carafe No 75, which fits easily in a
fridge door; for special occasions, I love my
elegant Georgian taper (c1770), bought from
antique glass specialist David Glick. I have
commissioned Glick to source a variety of
decanters for our second Noble Rot restaurant,
opening in spring on the site of the historic Gay
Hussar in Soho. However, one thing is for sure;
whether paradise or vinegar, we’ll always ask
before decanting your wine.
Dan Keeling is co-founder of Noble Rot,
the wine and food magazine and restaurant
43
 Restaurant Insider
Nicholas Lander
CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: DRY-AGED DUCK; OYSTERS; YELLOWTAIL; APPLE CIDER DOUGHNUT. PHOTOGRAPHS BY EVAN SUNG
Davies and Brook,
London
L
ast month, Davies and Brook,
Daniel Humm’s restaurant at
Claridge’s hotel in London,
opened six months later
than expected. In this industry,
six months represents a long and
expensive delay.
The space, which is on the
corner of Davies and Brook streets,
was previously occupied by Gordon
Ramsay and then Simon Rogan.
The Swiss-born Humm, best
known for Eleven Madison Park in
New York, is a far better chef than
his British predecessors.
For Humm, 43, this venture
in the Mayfair hotel where he
first cooked at the age of 15 is a
particular challenge. He established
himself alongside business partner
Will Guidara, but that partnership
split up last year. Now he faces this
transatlantic challenge on his own.
So much has changed in this airy
space that for the first few minutes
I sat there wondering whether it
could possibly be the same as the
one formerly occupied by Ramsay
and Rogan. The sight-lines seem
much improved. The colours are
far lighter. The pale grey that
44
permeates the dining room is
dictated by 40 muted photographs
of Icelandic landscapes by the artist
Roni Horn, a friend of Humm’s.
Everything in the kitchen is white.
The menu came, bound in grey,
and we opened it to find a clever
variation on the standard menu. It
was divided into cold starters, warm
starters, main courses and dessert,
with four courses costing £98.
A waitress arrived with two rolls
and an amuse-bouche: thin slices
of scallop topped with horseradish
and apple alongside a bowl filled
with a delicious scallop broth.
For our cold starters, a ceviche
of sea bass – with avocado,
cucumber and shrimp oil – was
enhanced by a carefully seasoned
avocado sauce poured around
it, while the yellowtail had been
marinated and given spice and
crunch by the addition of toasted
amaranth seeds.
For the warm starter course
(portions were moderate), we
went our separate ways. My wife
selected an aubergine dish with
roasted garlic that was good, if
not particularly distinctive, while
I chose perhaps the best dish of
my meal. Described as winter
minestrone with vegetables and
kombu (dried kelp), this soup hit
all the right notes. Appetising,
‘The best dish of my meal
was a winter minestrone.
Appetising, salty and
restorative, this soup hit
all the right notes’
Davies and Brook
Claridge’s hotel, Brook Street,
London W1K 4HR
020 7107 8848
daviesandbrook.co.uk
Starter, main and dessert
(weekday lunch) £72
Cold starter, warm starter,
main and dessert (dinner
and weekend lunch) £98
Tasting menu £145
salty and restorative, it had all
the refined flavours – plus the
colourful appearance in the
carefully prepared and arranged
vegetables awaiting their broth
– that I would expect from a top
professional kitchen.
From a menu obviously turning
its back on red meat (neither lamb
nor beef was on offer), we both
chose fish for our main courses:
a black cod, sweet and moist,
with Napa cabbage, and fillets of
John Dory with a porcini ragù.
Both were excellent.
After the mains, our waitress
approached our table and, hearing
that neither of us wanted cheese,
recited the desserts on offer. This
approach was original, if slightly
disconcerting at first, and it created
a closer bond between her and
us. One dessert of mandarins –
with slices of the fruit on top of
mandarin ice cream, cream and
thin biscuit – was delightful.
The idea of raising the waiting
staff from plate-carriers to playing
an integral role in everyone’s meals
is a hallmark of the Guidara/
Humm approach to hospitality, and
one that has proved so successful
at Eleven Madison Park. Now it
has been successfully inculcated
in London.
I overheard another waitress, for
example, tell an American couple
sitting nearby, after they had
spilled something, “If you don’t
make a mess, how would I know
whether you had had a good time?”
And there was the drama
provided by the knowledgeable
French sommelier, Gabriel Di Bella.
When a neighbouring table ordered
a bottle of Château de Beaucastel
1998 (£250), he approached with
a trolley, laden with tongs and a
flame. As though it were a bottle of
vintage port, Di Bella proceeded to
heat the tongs and then place them
around the neck of the bottle to
crack it open before decanting.
When I quizzed him about
this, Di Bella explained that most
bottles more than 15 years old are
subjected to this palaver because,
“It brings an extra bit of theatre
into the dining room.”
Such immediate confidence in
the kitchen and in the service has
only come about through practice –
thanks, quite possibly, to the delay
in opening.
More columns at ft.com/lander
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020
 Games James Walton’s The
Penguin Book Quiz:
From the Very Hungry
Caterpillar to Ulysses
is out now, £9.99

A Round on the Links The Crossword

by James Walton No 470. Set by Aldhelm
All the answers here 1 2 3 4 5 6
are linked in some
way. Once you’ve 7 8
spotted the link, any
you didn’t know the 9
first time around
10 11
should become easier.
1. Abraham-Louis
Breguet (1747-1823)
played a central role 12 13 14
in the development of 00
15
which kind of clock?
2. Which British 16 17 18
county has the highest
00
GDP per capita?
3. Which musical 19 20 21 22
features the songs
“They Call the 23
Wind Maria” and
24 25 26
“Wand’rin’ Star”?
4. The London
Symphony Orchestra
(below) play Detective of London are 27 28
performed the theme
Sergeant Trotter? Meg Hillier and
from which film at
Diane Abbott?
the 2012 Olympics 7. “Landscape: Noon”
opening ceremony was the original 10. Tom Fletcher
(above right)? name for which John and Danny Jones are The Across clues are straightforward, while the Down clues are cryptic.
Constable painting? the two lead singers
5. In which sporting
in which band? ACROSS DOWN 18 One accustomed
job did Chris 8. What word for
7 Not on the payroll (9) 1 Fish under to working with
Silverwood replace a concert was
8 Backless seat (5) the surface of their betters (8)
Trevor Bayliss coined by 1920s
10 Promise (6) big torrent (5) 20 Diet allowance
in late 2019? jazz musicians as
11 Sicken (8) 2 Loaf with container includes this fat (6)
an abbreviation for
6. In the original 12 Old-fashioned for fruitcake (4, 4) 22 Old country spire
“engagement”?
West End production food store (6) 3 Plain meat dish not – crooked one (6)
of which play did 9. The two MPs 14 Harm (6) made smaller (6) 23 Little money for
Richard Attenborough for which district 16 Church recess (4) 4 Go over a part church enclosure,
17 Leafy (5) of Tuscany (4) at first (5)
18 Lukewarm (4) 5 Show video of 25 Fall’s an amazing
19 Of the mind (6) re-edited master (6) experience (4)
The Picture Round 21 Put into practice (6) 6 Company gets nasty
by James Walton 24 Iron Age gnat – one working for
settlement (8) spread of disease (9)
Who or what do these pictures add up to? 26 Fencing sword (6) 9 Obligation to take
27 Underneath (5) tricky bend around Solution to Crossword No 469
28 Hard work, ancient city (6) T O P B R A S S A F I L T E R
industry (9) 13 Harvest last of A R A A A N A U A A A E A N A
P I G S T Y A R E C O V E R Y
barley that is left for A G A I A O A R A E A I A I A

+ =
D I S S O L V E A T R A N C E
drying, initially (5) A N A A A D A A A A A T A H A
A A A A C H I L L E S H E E L
15 22, perhaps,
GETTY IMAGES

A A A L A O A A A N A A A D A

consuming favourite U
A
N
A
D
A
E
X
R
A
W
A
R
A
I
M
T
A
T
E
E
A
N
A
A
A
A
K
A
A

snack (9) S
A
T
H
R
A
A
N
I
A
N
O
A
A
P
R
E
A
R
T
S
A
O
P
N
A
A
I
L
A
17 Parasitic growth on H
A
E
M
A
A
D
E
L
A
I
S
N
A
E
S
A
A
A
I
T
A
T
I
E
A
S
E
T
A
Answers page 10 an amount of liquid (6) F A I R L Y A S I N E C U R E

FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020 45

 I
s the US drowning in drug abuse? If you
asked most ordinary American voters
that question, the answer would probably
be “yes”. After all, the past few years have
delivered a stream of headlines about the
tragic effects of the opioid epidemic, with
about 130 Americans dying every day
from opioid-related overdoses in 2018
and 2019.
Donald Trump often rails against the
scourge of substance abuse but tends to
GILLIAN
blame it on imports from places such as
Mexico or China. Last month, though, America’s
Bureau of Economic Analysis – the branch of
government thatassemblesofficial data–jumped
into the fray. And its conclusions about drug
trends might take some observers by surprise.
TETT
First, a little background. Until fairly recently,
government statisticians assumed their job was
to record observable legal economic activity
(such as factory output). However, the IMF has
long urged them to widen the lens. Since 2014,
EU member states have been encouraged by
Eurostat, the official statistics body, to include
some illegal activities – from prostitution to drug
PA RT I N G S H OT trafficking and tobacco smuggling – in their GDP.
So far, American statisticians have taken
Should America’s a more puritanical approach. “The Bureau of
Economic Analysis does not currently include
GDP include
illegal market activity because of challenges in
source data and different conceptual traditions,”
Rachel Soloveichik, a BEA economist, explained
illegal drug use? in a paper she presented at an IMF conference
last November.
The obvious problem with tracking illegal
activity is that it is hard to count with confidence.
Soloveichik estimated what might happen if the
BEA did include illegal activity in its GDP figures,
by amassing all the available sources of data
about illegal drugs, prostitution, gambling and
corporate theft in the US.
On a macro level, the implications of this
experimental exercise are not earth-shattering:
if illegal activities were included, it seems total
GDP would be about 1 per cent bigger. Judging
from Eurostat figures, this suggests that the
illegal sector is slightly larger in the US than in
some European countries, but not by that much.
But it is the category breakdown that is really
intriguing. The biggest illegal category is drugs,
which Soloveichik estimates sparked a massive
$111bnofexpenditurein2017.However,spending
levels have shifted sharply over time. In the
1950s, expenditure on drugs was negligible when
compared with overall retail spending. But it then
rose sharply: in the 1970s, heroin purchases were
apparentlyequivalentto3percentofallconsumer
spending, while for marijuana the ratio was 1 per
cent. In the 1980s, the rising popularity of cocaine
pushed spending on the illegal stimulant to an
eye-popping 3.5 per cent.
But after that, spending on most illegal drugs,
as a proportion of all consumer expenditure,
tumbled so sharply that it now runs at below
46 ILLUSTRATION BY ULLA PUGGAARD
0.5 per cent. The only exception to the decline is
marijuana:thisfellinthe1990sbuthassincerisen
slightly, to just over 0.5 per cent.
One explanation for these trends might be
a decline in consumption itself, and there are
reports that for some drugs, such as cocaine, this
is a factor. Another might be that (more recently)
legally prescribed opioid drugs have sometimes
been substituted for illegal heroin, while
marijuana has been partly legalised. But the main
‘The biggest illegal category is
drugs, which are estimated to
have sparked a massive $111bn
of expenditure in 2017’
cause, according to Soloveichik, is “huge drops
in relative drug prices between 1980 and 1990”;
indeed, the price collapses have been so dramatic
thatthey“mayappearimplausibleatfirstglance”,
she notes.
Nevertheless,thisdeflationdoesseemgenuine,
anditreflectsbothhigherdrugpotency,increased
supply and ease of access. To put it bluntly (no
pun intended), Americans now find it easier and
cheaper than ever to get high. This echoes the
pattern seen previously with alcohol: during the
Prohibition years of the 1920s, expenditure on
illegal alcohol peaked at a level equivalent to 4 per
cent of all consumer spending, because it was so
expensive;afterProhibitionended,totalspending
T
levels collapsed because of deflation, even as
consumption remained steady.
his has at least two implications.
First, it suggests that America’s
long-running war on drugs has not
“worked” in the sense of making
it harder for consumers to access
drugs. That does not necessarily
prove that decriminalisation would
be better, given the damage drugs
can do (at last week’s meeting of the
American Economic Association in
San Diego, for example, a hot topic
was the economic damage of the
opioid epidemic). But the price trends certainly
merit policy debate.
Second, the data shows why we should widen
our view when we measure “the economy”. In
recent years (as I have previously written), there
has been growing concern about the failure of
GDP data to properly track digital innovation.
But old-fashioned illegal activities clearly matter
too; if we exclude either of these, we miss part
of the picture. In that sense, the next set of GDP
data releases should come with a public health
warning; or perhaps a link to Soloveichik’s
marvellous paper.
gillian.tett@ft.com; @gilliantett
FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 11/12 2020