DECEMBER 17/18 2022

MOSCOW

H E WA S A N

ENTREPRENEUR

A N D V I S I O N A RY

IN THE NEW RUSSIA .

I S T H AT R E A L LY W H Y

H E H A D TO F L E E?

BY COURTNEY WEAVER

AND STEFANIA PALMA

EXILE
 MARGUERITE BORNHAUSER
December 17/18 2022

FEATURES
18. 26. 39.
The exile Shades of everything Party on
▶

Sergei Leontiev’s extraordinary How the restoration of Paris’s What can be learnt from how
story of his flight from Russia. La Maison du Pastel became an one-percenters celebrate?
By Courtney Weaver and epic labour of love. By Jessica Craig-Martin
Stefania Palma By Imogen Savage

INTELLECT APPETITES WIT& WISDOM

9 Tim Harford 14 Simon Kuper 33 Tim Hayward 44 Robert Shrimsley

Dreaming of an Sorrow and joy in Doha The wild west’s Harry, Meghan, harrumph
imperfect Christmas 16 Gillian Tett new wave 45 Games
10 Tim Bradshaw Survey says… worry about 34 Rowley Leigh recipe 46 The Questionnaire
How AI bucked the the future Orvieto chicken Courtney Pine, musician
job-squeeze trend 37 Jancis Robinson
12 Gallery Switzerland’s swishest sups
Mostafa Azimitabar in Australia

ON THE COVER
Issue number 1002 • Online ft.com/magazine • FT Weekend Magazine is printed by the Walstead Group in the UK and Collage by Mel Haasch
published by The Financial Times Ltd, Bracken House, 1 Friday Street, London EC4M 9BT © The Financial Times Ltd 2022 Portrait by Debmalya Ray Choudhuri
No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without the prior express permission of the publisher
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Marginalia by
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FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022 5

 Letters
Inside the world of female
MI6 officers
by Helen Warrell
Reporting-heavy, long-form feature
writing is a real skill. This piece, on
the role of women in MI6, by
@helenwarrell of the @FT is simply
magnificent. Beautifully written,
precise in detail, a rollicking read.
@jayrayner1 via Twitter
Congrats Helen, terrific story,
extremely well written. If we were
to keep scores, you would have
earned this year’s FT subscription.
FinanceAcademic via FT.com
Years ago, someone I knew was
going into an intelligence-related
job and had to be vetted. I was
interviewed. I was determined
to stay tight-lipped and not say
anything that might compromise
the person I knew. The plain, boring-
looking intelligence officer had me
singing like a canary within minutes.
Their technique was simply to use
silence at the right time.
Breq via FT.com
Fascinating read. What struck a
chord was the “permafrost” at
middle management. Definitely
also true in finance over the past
20-plus years. Full of self-important
individuals trying to maintain their
spot as long as possible.
Helen via FT.com
The gig is up now for anyone
who says that they do painfully
mundane work at the FCO.
Aidan Flanagan via FT.com
Nasty, brutish and short
by George Parker, Sebastian Payne and
Laura Hughes
“Kwarteng went on to a drinks
party with Tory donors, where he
was given a ‘hero’s welcome’.”
6 FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
This one line tells us all we need to
know about the priorities of today’s
Conservative party. It has become
the plaything of the donor class.
The problem is that everyone else
is left to pick up the pieces.
Moley27 via FT.com
A truly depressing story where
political hubris and the excessive
influence of unaccountable
opaquely funded rightwing think-
tanks failed catastrophically when
faced with economic reality.
Matthew Stephenson, Wakefield
The man who plants crosses where
migrants die
▶
by Linda Pressly
Thanks to Alvaro Enciso and also to
the FT for this article. Very moving
and shocking.
Superpaco via FT.com
Who are we humans to play God
and decide who deserves to live
where? We are all where we are due
to an accident of birth. God bless
Enciso and his very brave, humane
and compassionate colleagues. The
evil that men do lives after them…
the good?
Fat Radio Man via FT.com
Why I’m hooked on the
Super Mario trailer
by Leo Lewis
Watched the trailer after reading
this article. It was awesome!
Looking forward to the film.
Postman via FT.com
Everyone needs a Brexit cupboard,
even Britain
by Tim Harford
Forget the pasta, Tim, you need to
store wine! We’ve got 200 bottles
of glorious slurping stuff that have
cheerfully seen us through the
pandemic and beyond.
Did you know FT Weekend has a podcast? We explore today’s
culture, big ideas, nuanced questions and what it means to
live a good life. Join us for inspiring conversations, in-depth
storytelling, a bit of escapism and a lot of fun. Search
‘FT Weekend’ where you listen, or ft.com/ftweekendpodcast
DECEMBER 10/11
Why women make the best spies
TO CONTRIBUTE
You can comment on our articles online
or email magazineletters@ft.com.
Please include a daytime telephone
number and full address (not for
publication). Letters may be edited.
We’ve also bought a back-up
generator to see us through the
worst our wonky local (and
potentially national) electricity grid
can throw at us this winter.
Our main challenge as a
household and a nation is to
declutter. We’re storing mountains
of stuff. It just happens to be junk.
My FT Comments via FT.com
Ivanka Trump is reading the room
by Gillian Tett
“The former president’s daughter
has a better grip on reality than her
father.” So does my dog. Big whoop.
K via FT.com
The world comes together in Doha
by Simon Kuper
Wealthy people bumping along
together at an expensive sporting
event is no evidence of amity at
all, any more than it is at Glorious
Goodwood. It’s evidence of social
class. You’re sanitising the event
for the benefit of the lucky few
who attended.
TomEDub via FT.com
From Gooner to gourmand in N4
by Tim Hayward
This might be the greatest piece
of gastronomic writing in 2022.
I already feel guilty about wanting
to go here and eat food that satisfies
my affected-in-later-life epicurean
streak but which is set in a venue
I grew up in and secretly yearn to
return to.
SmokinPolecat via FT.com
The best sweet and strong wines
by Jancis Robinson
A lovely list. The Greek Samos
is gorgeous. But not a single
Sauternes! (For those in need,
Hedonism Wines have 1831
d’Yquem at £39,404 for the bottle.)
Angus Macmillan via FT.com
Emily Brontë + James Blunt = Emily Blunt
Picture quiz
10. “The Final Countdown”
7. Passes 8. Whistle Down the Wind 9. Red Cross
4. Early Doors 5. The Washington Post 6. Handbags
1. The Wings of the Dove 2. Net zero 3. US Route 1
The link was football-related words (and cliches)
Quiz answers
 Inside: Grant Wahl, the reporter who got it right about Qatar p14

Intellect
Undercover Economist
TIM HARFORD
Why you shouldn’tstrive
forthe perfectChristmas

AstrangethinghappenedtomeoneChristmasDayafternoon.
I was a young adolescent, certainly not too old to enjoy sweets
and gifts and the inevitable Bond movie on the telly. Yet after the
presents had been unwrapped, and the turkey and pudding con-
sumed, I found myself feeling deflated. I took to my bedroom
and lay down in the December dark. When my father found
me, I tearfully complained that Christmas was already over, but
it wasn’t even four o’clock.
It was all a little juvenile, but then, so was I. Yet perhaps my
bout of sadness reflected something more universal. Didn’t
Alexander weep because there were no more worlds to con-
quer? (Possibly not.) We busy humans are always looking ahead
to the moment our goals are achieved. And then what? The
feeling of emptiness often stalks the feeling of accomplishment
like a shadow.
What distinguishes the teenage me from the adult me – and
from many other adults – is that the adult me has far more pro-
jects, with far more goals to achieve. When I tick something
off the list, I don’t flop in my bedroom; I’m too busy for that.
The to-do list is long.
I’m not sure the adult me is really wiser than the teenager,
though. There is nothing wrong with having goals but – with
apologies for the cliché – life must be about the journey as well
as the destination.

FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022 ILLUSTRATION BY GUILLEM CASASÚS 9

 Intellect

Oliver Burkeman, in his splendid book Four Thousand Notes from the Cutting Edge
Weeks, reflects on the distinction between “telic” and “atelic”
projects. (The terms originate, of course, with a philoso- TIM BRADSHAW
pher, Kieran Setiya.) Telic projects have a goal, an end state;
atelic projects do not. Revengeofthechatbot
The telic runner works towards the achievement of complet-
ing an iconic marathon; the atelic runner enjoys the experience
of running and the immediate consequence of feeling fit from day
to day. The telic reader hopes to sharpen their skills, impress
people with their insight at dinner parties, or pick up some
followers on Goodreads. The atelic reader likes books.
As Burkeman ruefully observes, instead of “atelic activity”
we could say “hobby”, but that word has “come to signify some- When the World Economic Forum for image-generation tools such as
thing slightly pathetic”. Our culture tells us that hobbies are predicted a few years ago that artifi- Midjourney. For a couple of bucks,
for losers. cial intelligence would cause seven you can buy pre-written templates
A project can be partly telic and partly atelic – both a means million job losses, the great and the for “cute robotic animal pictures”
to an end and an end in itself. But in that ambiguity lies a trap, good of Davos were able to wring and “3D game renders”.
because the goal has a tendency to obscure the activity itself. their hands about the human cost of AI entrepreneur Colin Treseler,
For example, loyal readers may know that I love role-playing progress while feeling certain that co-founder of Supernormal, is one
games. (The most famous example is Dungeons & Dragons.) They they would be left unscathed. Auto- of those looking to hire. “You have
are utterly atelic: a joy to prepare for, a joy to experience with mation might, they believed, take to find ways to talk to the model to
a group of old friends, a joy to remember. They are never com- out office drones and administrative get the correct output,” he says. The
plete; you never win or lose. But recently I found myself starting roles but not management gurus or problem is there aren’t many people
to plan a game, and before long I was dreaming of relaunching software engineers. doing this job yet: I found only a
an old gaming fanzine, maybe fundraising on Patreon. A hobby That confidence has been shaken handful on LinkedIn.
wasn’t enough; somehow it had to become a publication, even a in recent months by a new wave of On first mention, prompt engi-
side-hustle. Madness! “generative AI” tools: apps that neering sounds like a comforting
So if I sound harsh about telic projects, the harshness is can create pictures, video or prose bedtime story for knowledge work-
directed at myself: too little of my time is spent doing things for good enough to pass as authenti- ers,inwhichpreparingforthefuture
their own sake. cally human. At the moment one involves little more than messing

C
in particular is captivating Sili- about with ChatGPT and posting the
hristmas offers an opportunity to observe con Valley. Hailed as the smartest results on Twitter. Lots of the tech
the struggle between the telic and the atelic. chatbot ever made, ChatGPT can elite have spent the past couple of
When we haul out the Christmas-card list generate high-school essays, soft- weeks doing little else anyway. But
and churn through it, we are in the world of ware code or marketing strategies Basil Safwat, design lead at AI start-
the telic. When we spend time and thought within seconds, all from a few words up Adept, thinks I am being a bit
writing to old friends (or phoning them, or even of a “prompt”. Social too cynical. “There
being so bold as to visit them), we are in the realm of the atelic. media timelines is genuinely a need
One completes a Christmas card list; one does not complete have been filling up Learninghowto for people who are
a friendship. with people trying getthebestresponses slightly ahead in
Or consider the venerable tradition of gift-giving. Last year out the technology. fromchatbotsis their understanding
I noted the work of the behavioural scientists Jeff Galak, “This used to be my becomingaskill of this new mate-
Elanor Williams and Julian Givi. They argued that we often job,” tweeted one allofitsown rial,” he says, which
choose gifts with the moment of unwrapping in mind, even former Meta man- he says is still in its
though this is just the beginning of the story as far as the recip- ager, after ChatGPT “raw state” today.
ient is concerned. As a result we are too focused on surprises, had churned out a plausible take on Indeed, the very notion of a
on “humorous” gifts (although even the best punchline soon Instagram’s product roadmap. prompt engineer reveals the biggest
passes)andonstuffthatcanbewrappedratherthanexperiences, ChatGPT’s results are not always shortcoming of these new AIs: they
which cannot. reliable or accurate. Nonetheless, aren’tquitesmartenoughyetforjust
Another way to see this is that, again, we are obsessed with all of a sudden, AI has the creative anyone to be able to use them suc-
the moment at which a goal is achieved (present delivered!) classes and middle-management cessfully.Andthingsaremovingfast.
even though many of the best gifts endure in someone’s life. squarely in its sights. But fear not. Safwat believes that the interfaces
If we thought more about the ongoing role a gift might play The WEF predicts that AI would we use to access and manipulate
for the recipient, and less about achieving our own short-term not only kill jobs but create them. these AIs will soon improve, in the
objectives, we’d do a better job of choosing good presents. And one such role that has emerged process making prompt engineers
Even Santa Claus makes a list and checks it twice, and I with the rise of generative AI is the redundant. Likening it to the evo-
cannot imagine preparing for Christmas without a thick wad “prompt engineer”. lution of the computer operating
of checklists. But I’ve come to realise, over the years, that my This job description sees writ- systemfromatext-drivencommand
rather elaborate Christmas preparations no longer have a ing the prompts necessary to get the line to windows and touchscreens,
particular goal; Christmas has become a seasonal hobby of best responses from AIs as a skill he says: “I don’t think this stage will
mine. The list is long: decant treats from kitchen cupboards all of its own. Wrangling ChatGPT last for long.”
into an old picnic hamper; curate a Christmas playlist; write requires a deeper understanding of Perhaps what prompt engi-
letters to old friends. Some of it happens, some of it doesn’t, how AI works – hence “engineer” neers really represent is a whole
most of it is great fun – and somehow or other, Christmas comes – as well as domain expertise, be new class of employment disrup-
just the same. that coding, marketing or home- tion: jobs both created and then
It is a state of mind I would do well to cultivate all year work. An online marketplace called destroyed by AI.
round. Promptbase has already sprung up,
where prompt engineers can sell Tim Bradshaw is the FT’s
Tim Harford’s latest book is “How to Make the World Add Up” their carefully crafted instructions global tech correspondent

10 FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022

 Intellect

GALLERY
Painting by
MOSTAFA AZIMITABAR

“KNS088” is a striking self-

portrait. Even more so when you
discover that it was painted with
a toothbrush dipped, for its brown
tones, in coffee, by an asylum
seeker with no formal art training.
The work is among the finalists
in this year’s Archibald Prize
in Australia.
It was made by Mostafa
Azimitabar, 36, a Kurd who fled
Iran in 2013. He taught himself to
paint during the six years he spent
in a detention camp on Manus
Island, Papua New Guinea, one of
several offshore centres set up by
Australia in 2001 to process asylum
seekers arriving by boat.
Plagued by the monotony
of camp life, Azimitabar asked
for some paints, but the guards
refused, assuming he wanted to
harm himself. “They said, ‘If you
eat paint, it kills you,’” he recalls.
Inspiration struck when he spotted
a toothbrush left next to a cup of
coffee. He began experimenting,
“like a five-year-old kid, on any
piece of paper I could find”.
Eventually, Azimitabar was sent
to Sydney on a temporary visa.
While there, he painted “KNS088”
(so named after the number he
was assigned in the camp) in eight
days at the studio of a friend, who
IMAGE © AGNSW, JENNI CARTER

persuaded him to enter it for

the prize.
When it went on display at the
Art Gallery of New South Wales in
May, Azimitabar would often stand
near it, hoping observant visitors
would strike up a conversation
‘KNS088 (Self-portrait)’, 2022 with him. “I wanted to tell them
my story,” he says. “Most of them
didn’t know about their [asylum]
system. Can you believe that?”
Azimitabar’s status remains
unresolved. But he continues to
paint, dreaming of an exhibition
in Europe – and a permanent visa
for Australia.

Words by Sophie Hanscombe.

The 2022 Archibald Prize
exhibition is touring Australia;
artgallery.nsw.gov.au

10
 Intellect
World View
SIMON
KUPER
What Doha has taught
me about loss
I
was sitting in the press stand – three jour-
nalists to a desk, everyone’s eyes glued to
the Netherlands-Argentina quarter-final –
when, 40 metres to my left, colleagues stood
up and began shouting for help. There was
fright on their faces. Word spread that some-
body had had a heart attack. Paramedics appeared
and began working on the prostrate figure. Then
another journalist told me: the man down was our
much-liked American colleague Grant Wahl. I’d
been on his podcast last year. Here in Doha, while
most journalists focused on the football, he’d con-
tinued campaigning against Qatar’s wrongdoings.
He’d been briefly detained for showing up to a
gameinarainbow T-shirttosupportLGBT+rights.
So, there to my left was someone I knew and
admired, possibly dying. But in front of me was my
team, the Netherlands (I grew up there), playing
a thriller. I’m ashamed to say this, but I spent half
an hour swivelling my head between Grant and the
game. So did many journalists around me. When
the Dutch missed two penalties and lost, I fled
home. Waking up the next morning, I saw on my
phone that Grant had died. He had just turned 48.
The scene was another reminder to me of the
quandaryofQatar’sWorldCup,onethatGranthim-
self wrote about: should we have kept our eyes on
the field or on the horrors happening off it?
ThewriterBenjaminMosertoldmeweshouldn’t
bewatchingfootball.WediscusseditviaWhatsApp:
Ben: How horrible that people go to
thisthing,pretendlikeit’saboutsports,
etc., but who cares about a hated and
persecuted minority, it’s all good
fun anyway.
14
Me: I don’t believe whataboutism is a
proper argument, but what would you
say to the response: well, you grew up
in Texas where gay sex was illegal until
2003? I’ve been repeatedly told that
homosexualityhereinQatarisdefacto
tolerated as long as it’s private, just like
hetero hookups on Tinder. Is what I’m
saying absurd? If so, please tell me.
Ben: Your point re Texas is well
taken. But if it was any other group
this wouldn’t be a question. It sends
a clear message that gay people
are dispensable.
Me: FIFA chose Qatar as host. That
forced billions of people to choose
between watching games played in Q.
or missing the joy of a World Cup.
Ben: I just am not sure what there is to
enjoy in those circumstances. If you
went to a shop and tried on a shirt and
thesaleswomanwaslike“thiswasmade
byasevenyearoldinBangladeshwhois
keptinacage,”wouldyousay“yeahbut
this colour looks good on me”?
Me: When Holland score in the last
minute I feel joy – I can’t help it.
Ben: It’s similar to the line vegetarians
get: “You’re right of course but I just
LOVE CHEESEBURGERS!” Because
people think that the right to consume
overrides everyone else’s rights.
Grant shared Ben’s outrage. His last post, about
Qatar’s response to deaths of migrant workers,
began, “They just don’t care.” Grant did care about
ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY HAYSOM
people’s suffering, and put in countless hours doc-
umenting it. Before the World Cup he went around
hotels trying to interview staff about their working
conditions, while evading the Qatari authorities.
There is another type of journalist who is drawn
to the people in power. For them, a career highlight
is being summoned to the front of the plane for 20
minutes with the Secretary of State, who uses your
first name (briefed to him by his aides), pretends
to ask your opinion, then plants a bogus story on
you. The football equivalent is the journalist who
lives for 30 post-match seconds with the superstar:
one sycophantic question, then a selfie. But Grant
looked down rather than up. He shared that view
with his widow, Céline Gounder, a doctor and jour-
nalist who has worked on diseases such as Zika and
Ebola that few in rich countries think about.
But Grant also loved soccer. His last tweet, after
the last-minute Dutch equaliser, read: “Just an
incredible designed set-piece goal.”
I reckon Grant made the correct call. He man-
aged to watch both what was happening on the
field and off. I understand Ben’s objection to enjoy-
ing football while others suffer. But if people aren’t
entitled to simple pleasures such as football while
others are suffering, then nobody in history would
ever have been entitled to simple pleasures. I leave
Qatar with the belief that I landed here with intact:
the World Cup spreads joy, much of it to people who
have pretty bleak lives. We should spotlight Qatar’s
wrongdoings, without letting them deprive us of
that joy.
But, of course, it suits me to believe that. Maybe
Ben is right.
simon.kuper@ft.com @KuperSimon
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
 Intellect
American Experiment
GILLIAN
TETT
Sick of all the upheaval?
Better get used to it
T
he end of the year is almost upon us
and,withit,arrivesthelongstanding
business ritual of analysts releasing
projections for the next year.
Often these are accompanied by
sentiment trackers.
One from AlixPartners, a global consulting
firm, made me blink. It surveyed some 3,000
business executives around the world about
their experiences, concluding that around three-
quarters are facing a high level of disruption from
world events right now, while 70 per cent think
their jobs are at risk. A remarkable 98 per cent
believe their business models will have to change
in the next three years.
It would be wrong to draw definitive lessons
from one survey, least of all from one conducted
by consultants whose job is to find problems to
solve. Still, Alix’s message is not unique. A survey
by Chief Executive magazine shows that, although
a majority of business leaders expect to see
better revenues over the next 12 months, and are
fractionally more confident about this than they
were last month, that same sense of “global and
domesticuncertainty”pervadespeople’sthinking.
Indeed, when I talk to business leaders now,
the words “disruption” and “uncertainty”
repeatedly crop up. “As far as recent decades go,
this sense of disorientation is new,” says Adam
Tooze, a fellow FT columnist, who is also a history
professor at Columbia University. In a recent
column he revived an old buzzword, “polycrisis”,
to capture the current sensation of multiple
cascading shocks. This disruption is not the frothy
creative destruction championed during the
unicorn start-up era. This disruption is bad.
16
What explains all this fear? The world is reeling free-market capitalism and democracy have all
from shockwaves generated by, among other come under attack.
things, the war in Ukraine, the rise of artificial Meanwhile, the Great Moderation has been
intelligence and the Covid-19 pandemic. The Alix exposedasanillusionor,perhapsmoreaccurately,
survey shows that 88 per cent of respondents a piece of financial engineering conjured up for
think they should reconfigure their supply chains a period by excessively loose credit conditions.
to cope with deglobalisation, while a smaller Predicting the next 50 years no longer seems
majority of 56 per cent think that tech innovation very rational.
is happening so fast that their company cannot Some would say this swing is just a case of
keep up. the world returning to the historic norm. After
Beyond specific threats, I suspect another all, most of humanity in most eras also faced
explanation is cognitive shock. Most business instability and, often, violence. That it was the
leaders today – along with anyone else from Gen X past few decades that were the aberration, not the
– built their careers in a world where it felt normal other way round.
to expect a sense of stability and to be able to That’s of little comfort to individuals on the
make long-term predictions. The frontlines of crises. Humans
late 20th century and early 21st assume the conditions they
century was a time when another Since2008,we grew up with are “normal”
buzz phrase became popular: the havewitnessedthe and everything else is not; I
“Great Moderation”. That was the wayhistorycan suspect that most of the survey
idea that inflation was low and participants might assume that
growth so steady that the business
alsogointoreverse: soon we’ll probably return to the
cycle was almost dead. globalisation,free stability of the past.
It was also a time when the marketcapitalism Somehow I doubt it. The key
historian Francis Fukuyama anddemocracyhave point to remember is this: history
published a tome heralding The allcomeunderattack shows that disruptions from war,
End of History and the Last Man, or anything else, create not just
and although Fukuyama has terrible costs, but opportunities
long since clarified that he did not really think for some. Sony was born when the second world
“history” had stopped, the underlying idea that war smashed apart Japan’s formerly rigid society.
was absorbed by this generation was that history America became dominant in global industrial
was inexorably going in one direction, becoming production after Europe’s destruction. That word
more democratic, more globalised and more “disruption”, after all, comes from the Latin word
capitalist. All of this was defined as “progress”. “to break apart”.
Since 2008, however, we have witnessed the
way history can also go into reverse: globalisation, gillian.tett@ft.com @gilliantett
ILLUSTRATION BY CRISTIANA COUCEIRO FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
18 FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 22/23 2022
 FALL OF THE
HOUSE OF
LEONTIEV

SERGEI LEONTIEV WAS AN

ENTREPRENEUR AND VISIONARY IN

THE NEW RUSSIA

RUSSIA.

IS THAT WHY HE HAD TO FLEE?

BY COURTNEY WEAVER AND STEFANIA PALMA

COLLAGE BY MEL HAASCH

PORTRAIT BY DEBMALYA RAY CHOUDHURI

FT.COM/MAGAZINE JANUARY 22/23 2022 19

O
ne morning in August 2015, a call came into Sergei
Leontiev’s mansion on Moscow’s millionaire’s row.
Leontiev, a late riser with a habit of arriving at the
office mid-afternoon and staying until the early
hours, was still at home. He was 50, with a boyish
face, close-cropped dark hair and thin-framed
glasses. He dressed modestly but carried himself
with the confidence of a man who had co-founded
a bank with his childhood best friend and turned
it into a juggernaut. When he came to the phone,
Leontiev had no idea what was happening at his
company’s headquarters, located not far from the
central bank and the Kremlin.
Alexander Zheleznyak, Leontiev’s class-
mate-turned-business partner, was on the line.
Paramilitary troops armed with machine guns had
entered the bank’s offices, he told his old friend,
and they were rifling through documents on behalf
of the Russian state. The bank’s assets were effec-
tively frozen. Zheleznyak had been at Leontiev’s
side long before joining the consultancy that Leon-
tiev founded in 1988, which eventually grew into a
banking group called Probusinessbank.
They now managed assets worth some $1bn
and had more than 700 retail branches across the
country. Together, they’d courted and won some
of the most prominent western investors in Russia,
including the European Bank for Reconstruc-
tion and Development, Swedish asset manager
East Capital and BlueCrest, the British-American
hedge fund.
Zheleznyak advised his friend not to come in.
“For one thing, your office is occupied,” he said.
“For another, there’s nothing for you to do here.”
ThetwoagreedLeontievwouldattempttoconduct
business as usual, while Zheleznyak visited one of
their most well-connected clients, who might help
themnavigatethecrisis.Leontievgotintohisblack
chauffeured Mercedes and headed to a Starbucks,
where he tried to work while receiving regular
reports on the raid a few blocks away.
Zheleznyak soon asked Leontiev to join him at
the offices of their client, Alexander Varshavsky.
Varshavsky ran a large Moscow car dealership, but
Leontiev and Zheleznyak allege he was also con-
nected through his business partner to officials
from the prosecutor-general’s office and to the
FSB security agency, the modern-day KGB. (Their
claim is supported by multiple investigations by
independent Russian news outlets; Varshavsky
deniestheconnections.)Foryears,Varshavskyand
his business partner had given tens of millions of
dollars to entities connected to Leontiev, including
20
deposits at Probusinessbank, according to US court
filings. Now, Varshavsky was nervous and volatile,
worried that the money he held at the bank would
not be recoverable. When Leontiev showed up to
Varshavsky’s building, he sensed something was
wrong. “I just smelled danger,” he later recalled.
Leontiev and his two bodyguards reached Var-
shavsky’s office on the top floor to find 20 armed
guards waiting. He tried to enter with his security,
but a skirmish broke out between the two groups.
Leontiev’s side relented and he entered the office,
with its windowed views over Moscow, alone with
Zheleznyak. Varshavsky stressed that Leontiev
and Zheleznyak would need to personally reim-
burse him and certain VIP clients who could no
longer access their deposits.
Varshavsky then got on the phone and began
making calls. Without disclosing whom he was
dialling, he gave the impression he was talk-
ing to high-ranking government officials, all of
whom had the ability to put Leontiev in prison if
he didn’t return their deposits. (In a 2016 US court
filing, Varshavsky confirmed he met Leontiev and
Zheleznyak after the bank raid. In a written state-
ment, he told us the pair had promised to fulfil “all
obligations”, but never did. He did not respond to
subsequent questions about pressuring Leontiev
and Zheleznyak that night.) The meeting dragged
on past midnight, until Leontiev convinced Var-
shavsky he would find a way to get the money.
Instead, he went home, packed a suitcase and
headed to the airport, where he boarded a flight to
London. He never returned to his home country.
This is the story Leontiev tells of how he lost his
status and his life’s work. He has been persecuted
for his western-style business practices, he says,
for his liberalism, for his association with Alexei
Navalny, the imprisoned leader of Russia’s pro-
democracy movement. He is a victim of Vladimir
Putin’s vindictiveness and the corruption of the
officials around him. By the time the US granted
him asylum earlier this year – six weeks after Putin
ordered the invasion of Ukraine – Leontiev had
spentyearsmouldinghimselfintothekindofpolit-
ical émigré Americans love most: a democratic
fighter, a fair-play capitalist, an underdog.
Alice Segal, the New York judge who approved
Leontiev’s asylum application, wrote in her ruling
that his case had “deep similarities” to that of
Sergei Magnitsky, the Russian lawyer who had
been uncovering fraud by tax officials when he
died in pretrial detention in 2009, causing inter-
national outrage. Were the US to reject Leontiev’s
application, she added, he “would undoubtedly
be jailed and tortured and deprived medical treat-
ment as is the case with many dissidents who
support Navalny”.
In early May, a Washington public relations firm
offered us an interview with Leontiev, describing
him as a “high-profile Russian national targeted by
[the] Putin regime”. But in the process of trying to
corroborate his claims with former colleagues, for-
eign shareholders and experts in Russian finance,
a different version of events emerged. The diver-
gence in these stories underlines how the west
projects its own expectation on to Russia and how
the fog of war can obscure complex individual his-
tories. Russian military aggression has made tales
of heroes and villains more appealing. Some share
the asylum judge’s view of Leontiev’s tale. But the
bank insider who helped bring about his undoing
eight years ago is not one of them.
Leontiev was born in Moscow in 1965, the only
child of a diplomat. He did not have a typical Soviet
childhood, living for a time in London, where
his father worked for the Russian embassy, and
later in Vienna, where his father was stationed
with the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Leontiev’s parents imposed few restrictions.
He was uninterested in school, goading his teach-
ers into arguments about reading he hadn’t done.
Outside the classroom, by his own account, he
encouraged misbehaviour, helping organise mil-
itary re-enactments during which large groups of
kids would hurl rocks at each other; sometimes
police were called in to subdue the melee. His
parents were frequently called to account for his
behaviourbutseemedcontenttoletLeontievlearn
from his mistakes.
One constant was his friendship with Zhelezn-
yak, whom he met in first grade. Zheleznyak,
short and eager to please, was the smallest boy in
their class and had been seated in the front row so
he could see. Leontiev liked to sit in the front to
provoke the teachers. They developed a mutual
affection that persisted through adolescence,
when Leontiev’s family moved to Austria. After
Zheleznyak’s father died, when he was 15, Leon-
tiev’s parents treated him like a son, bringing him
along on family holidays.
Leontieveventuallyenrolledasaninternational
studies major at Moscow State Institute of Interna-
tional Relations. It was the mid-1980s and Mikhail
Gorbachev was gradually opening up the state-
planned economy. Leontiev saw opportunities.
He found a student with a photographic memory
and paid him to memorise the new business regu-
lations the country was introducing, then offered
up his expertise through paid lectures, giving
the classmate a cut of the profits. Soon, Leontiev
moved on to other enterprises: a travel insurance
firm, a tourism company.
Zheleznyak, meanwhile, planned to become a
criminal defence lawyer. Both his parents had been
respected criminal lawyers, and he dreamed of fol-
lowing in their footsteps. He graduated from law
school and found work defending clients accused
of murder and robbery as well as white-collar
criminals involved in the nascent banking sector,
he told us. He suggested to Leontiev that banking
would be a profitable business.
Zheleznyak said he had no intention of quit-
ting the law but that Leontiev pushed him into it,
first asking him to help draw up legal paperwork
for a new consulting venture and then pressuring
him to join. “Are you a friend or not?” Zhelezn-
yak recalls Leontiev asking. “Of course, I didn’t
manage to wriggle out of it,” he recalled recently. “I
quit my beloved work.” Leontiev puts it more pos-
itively. “I always saw the spirit of an entrepreneur
in him. My role was to create an alternative option
for him.” In 1993, they received a banking licence
that would launch Probusinessbank, a company
that would make them both millionaires. (Later, as
they added a number of other financial companies
to their stable, they paid an agency to come up with
a brand for the entire group. The result was a single
word: “Life.”)
As partners, Leontiev and Zheleznyak divided
and conquered. Leontiev cultivated a reputa-
tion as an intensely driven visionary. He put in
14-hour days, regularly scheduled 10pm meetings
and ended his evenings with an hour-and-a-half-
long run on a treadmill at maximum incline.
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
 WHEN LEONTIEV SHOWED UP TO VARSHAVSKY’S
BUILDING
BUILDING, HE SENSED SOMETHING WAS WRONG:
Zheleznyak, the extrovert, wooed clients, includ-
ing Varshavsky, who had helped launch one of
Moscow’s first luxury-car dealerships. Zheleznyak
and Varshavsky had common interests – both were
attracted to a moneyed lifestyle, Zheleznyak said –
and they became friends, spending time with each
other’s families including birthdays.
Leontiev admired western entrepreneurs such
as Warren Buffett and Richard Branson. His prin-
ciples included “people make decisions – not
paper” and “no stupid banking rules”, rebukes
to the Soviet-style bureaucracy that lingered at
many competitors. While other banks used credit
scoring, Leontiev devised a system where credit
managers would determine whether to approve
a loan based on their personal interaction with a
client, pending the approval of a risk manager.
The bank used role-playing logic games in hiring
interviews and employees’ wages were tied to the
performance of their clients’ loans.
Leontiev’s supporters saw a genius on the
verge of remaking the traditional banking indus-
try. Detractors saw him as a risk-taker trying to
disrupt a sector that requires stewardship of cus-
tomer deposits. But between 2006 and 2012, the
assets of Probusinessbank and its banking affili-
ates were growing at an average rate of 56 per cent a
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
‘II JUST SMELLED DANGER’
DANGER
year – three times faster than the Russian banking
sector overall, according to Kommersant, a leading
Russian newspaper.
y 2012, Leontiev and Zheleznyak
were running a business with a
retail presence in nearly every
important Russian city. It was
only the 34th largest bank in
the country, but it was growing
fast and had high margins.
Meanwhile,Putin’simagebothinRussiaandonthe
world stage began to change, as it became clear
he would not let go of power and planned to use
it differently.
Not everything at Probusinessbank had gone
smoothly. Leontiev spooked some of his investors
and executives in 2010 when he set up a trading
room to invest in high-yield foreign stocks, rang-
ing from BP to WholeFoods. Employing capital
and personnel from the bank to run an operation
making trades was inconsistent with a mid-sized
retail bank, according to several individuals close
to the shareholders. “People have different per-
spectives,” Leontiev told us. “My general view
was to create… this new type of investment plat-
form. That was a much grander, much bigger
project.” Leontiev eventually shut down the oper-
ation, he said, due to the unfavourable regulatory
environment and in response to opposition from
shareholders and other executives. Instead he cre-
ated a separate venture called Wonderworks to
make similar trades. It was funded by loans from
the banking group that were eventually repaid.
In 2012, a marketing guru at Life named Slava
Solodkiy suggested that Alexei Navalny speak
at one of the bank’s regularly scheduled con-
ferences for branch managers and employees.
Navalny made his name exposing embezzlement
at Russian state-owned companies and became
the country’s most prominent opposition figure.
Leontiev and Zheleznyak agreed, and Navalny,
fresh from the biggest anti-government pro-
tests of the Putin era, spoke at the conference
about reform. Not long after, executives at one
of the bank’s affiliates – an internet bank called
Bank24.ru – discussed the possibility of issuing
a Navalny-branded credit card that would give a
1 per cent cashback reward to his non-profit. But
the idea was soon scrapped amid worries about
political blowback.
In March 2013, Putin appointed Elvira Nabi-
ullina as Russia’s new central bank governor.
Nabiullina, a brainy technocrat, had helped steer
21
 the country through the 2008 financial crisis as
economic development minister, and her appoint-
ment was welcomed by western investors. Soon
after, the central bank began to clean up the coun-
try’s bloated financial sector, where many lenders
served as so-called pocket banks for their billion-
aire owners or were engaged in irregular offshore
behaviour and money laundering. Nabiullina
would ultimately wind down more than 300 lend-
ers in her first few years in the post.
The following year Bank24.ru attracted the cen-
tral bank’s attention. It had been spun out from
Probusinessbank’s holding company but still
had ties to its former parent, when Leontiev and
Zheleznyak heard the regulator was preparing to
investigateit.ThepairmetwithNabiullinatomake
the case that Bank24.ru should retain its licence.
At the meeting, Leontiev began lecturing Nabiull-
ina on the ins and outs of banking regulation, one
person with knowledge of the meeting recalled.
“She was pissed off, because he was lecturing her
about how to do supervision in the country,” they
added. The meeting ended shortly thereafter.
The central bank denied this characteri-
sation of the meeting. A spokesperson said
the central bank arranged the meeting after
Bank24.ru violated anti-money-laundering
legislation more than once. They denied that the
meeting was the reason Bank24.ru’s licence was
revoked a few weeks later.
It was around this time, Leontiev and Zhelezn-
yak said, that they began facing pressure to sign
over their ownership stake in the banking group,
in return for political protection. They claimed
this pressure came from Varshavsky, his business
partner and their associates in the Russian pros-
ecutor-general’s offices. The Russian state was
consolidating control over sectors of the econ-
omy including banking. A few oligarchs were in
the crosshairs while other Putin allies gained influ-
ence, and Varshavsky, they alleged, implied that
the two co-founders would need protection if they
wanted to hold on to their empire. Zheleznyak
said he went as far as to meet with the then-head
of the FSB’s economic unit, Kirill Cherkalin, who
suggested installing a retired FSB officer as a vice-
president at the bank. (In 2021, Cherkalin pleaded
guilty to taking bribes from a different Russian
company, wasfoundguiltyoflarge-scalefraudand
sentenced to seven years in prison.)
Leontiev and Zheleznyak said Varshavsky kept
urging them to give up control of the group, at one
pointdraftingdocumentsthatwouldtransfertheir
shares to his holding company for the ultimate
benefit of the then-prosecutor-general and one of
his top deputies. (The prosecutor-general at the
time did not respond to a request for comment.)
Varshavsky,whorespondedtoquestionsviaemail,
denied pressuring them to give up their stakes
and denied having any ties to the Russian prose-
cutor-general or high-ranking officials. However,
investigations by Novaya Gazeta, an independent
newspaper, and by the Organized Crime and Cor-
ruption Reporting Project, reported links between
investors in his company, Avilon, and family mem-
bers of Russian security services officials.
Leontiev’swesternshareholdersbegantonotice
something was amiss. “It was nearly impossible to
sort of read Sergei and miss the nervousness that
was just getting worse and worse,” said one person
close to the shareholders. The departure of some
top executives did not go unnoticed, according to
22
two western shareholders and one former exec-
utive at the bank. Why, they wondered, did the
company’s English-speaking employees – the ones
whometwithwesternshareholders–keepleaving?
One senior Probusinessbank executive,
Peter, said he became aware of three suspicious
“schemes”. (Peter is not his real name. He spoke
to us on condition of anonymity, citing concern for
his safety.) In one, documents showed the bank
was posting losses on foreign-exchange operations
with counterparties in Cyprus. But it was impossi-
ble to track where the money was actually going. In
another, the bank had issued loans to offshore shell
companies with scant public profile and dubious
ownership. Peter said he also witnessed conver-
sations that made him suspect some of the bank’s
securities were being used as collateral in Cyprus,
even though there was no reflection of this on the
bank’s balance sheet.
By late 2014, Nabiullina’s clean-up of the Rus-
sianbankingsectorwaswellunderway.Themarket
was starting to reflect investors’ concerns. That
autumn, Fitch Ratings downgraded Probusiness-
bank because of concerns about the liquidity of the
bank’ssecurityportfolio,thenlaterendeditscover-
age of the bank altogether, citing a lack of sufficient
information. Peter worried that if the central bank
came after Probusinessbank, he could be crimi-
nally implicated. He decided he had to act.
n mid-May this year, we met Leontiev at the
Manhattan offices of his lawyers, Kobre &
Kim. The years have transformed him, his
once-neat black hair a greying ponytail. His
face looked gaunt, and his clothes hung
loosely from his frame. He spoke in short
sentences, without much emotion, at times
as if he were bored by his own story.
At the meeting, Leontiev declined the lunch
of deli sandwiches offered by his lawyer. He was
keeping similar hours to those that fuelled him as a
young entrepreneur, subsisting on one meal a day,
a late dinner around 2am, shortly before bed. But
these days, his primary occupation was fighting
legal battles, including one in Liechtenstein where
some funds he put into a trust have been frozen. At
one point, he likened his legal situation to the siege
faced by Ukrainians in Mariupol and, at another, to
the Battle of Stalingrad.
In sometimes halting English, he described an
elaborate series of risk-management techniques
that he used to guide everything from his invest-
ment decisions to his legal battles to death threats
against him. “I have this type of market-oriented
approach to life,” he said. “It’s not how big the
risks are, it’s your quality to manage the risks you
should have.”
AfterhefledRussiain2015,theauthoritiesthere
alleged Leontiev and others had orchestrated an
offshore money-laundering scheme. The central
bank announced it had uncovered a roughly $1bn
hole in Probusinessbank’s balance sheet. Six staff
were arrested; four were sentenced to up to seven
years in Russian penal colonies. The authorities
sought to extradite Leontiev and Zheleznyak, who
hired lawyers to fight back. Shortly after they fled
Russia, Zheleznyak pleaded with his friend to talk
to Varshavsky again. The three met at a high-end
hotel in Mayfair. Leontiev surreptitiously recorded
their conversation on the advice of his lawyer.
“You have an obligation toward us in the neigh-
bourhood of 100 million,” Varshavsky told them.
“Yes,” replied Leontiev.
“Do you have this money today?”
“[We] have it, 100 per cent,” Zheleznyak
interjected.
“We have personal assets, yes,” Leontiev added.
“Well, it doesn’t matter if they are personal
or not –”
“We have it,” Leontiev said.
Before they left the meeting, the transcript of
which was later introduced as part of discovery in
a 2016 court case, Leontiev seemed to blame Var-
shavsky for failing to use his connections to avert
the collapse of Probusinessbank: “When our ene-
mies broke our business, you were unfortunately
unable to help us. And this caused a chain reaction
and consequences for you, because the goose that
laid the golden eggs was slaughtered.”
Varshavsky expressed fear for his own fate if he
was forced to return to Russia with no guarantee of
recoupinghislostinvestments.Andhegavethema
stark warning: “There may be a point of no return,”
he said. “Then nobody will need your money. Now
that is the scariest thing that could happen.”
Soon afterwards Leontiev moved to the US,
where he settled in Manhattan and set up a new
investment firm. He told us he funded it with the
proceeds of Wonderworks investments before
Russia filed criminal charges against him and
began petitioning to freeze his assets. For several
weeks, he said, cars would wait outside his apart-
ment building and tail him to work. One weekend,
someone tried to break into his firm’s office.
Zheleznyak, who had resettled with his family
in the Boston suburbs, also felt mounting pressure.
Friendsofhischildrenbeganreceivingthreatening
messages in badly written English on social media.
In Moscow, someone found photos of Zheleznyak
and young family members on his parents’ grave –
which he interpreted as a warning that they could
be six feet under next.
A slew of court cases were brought by different
arms of the Russian state and by former Probusi-
nessbank clients around the world. Varshavsky’s
car company Avilon was among those suing Leon-
tiev and his associates for approximately $60mn
in New York state supreme court, accusing him of
transferring money it had loaned his companies
to an offshore trust. (Leontiev rejected the allega-
tions. Avilon and the others eventually dropped
the case.) Russia’s Deposit Insurance Agency
(DIA) brought claims against Leontiev in Austria
– where his parents were summoned for question-
ing – and Cyprus. These moves follow the agency’s
pattern of pursuing bankruptcy or discovery pro-
ceedings in international courts, in an attempt to
get visibility on a target’s assets.
Jonathan Reich, a corporate lawyer who ini-
tiallytookajobatLeontiev’sfinancialservicesfirm
before becoming head of his legal efforts in half-a-
dozen jurisdictions, told us that Russia’s strategies
to destroy Leontiev have evolved over time. But
the aim throughout, Reich alleges, was to tie Leon-
tiev up in expensive court battles and sap his will to
cling on to his assets.
In a written statement, the DIA denied that
it had “political interests” in pursuing Leontiev
abroad and said its main objective as an agency
was the “maximum possible replenishment of
the bankruptcy estate”, in order to satisfy creditor
claims and alleged that Probusinessbank’s owners
had artificially inflated the bank’s assets to hide its
true financial state.
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
 LEONTIEV CULTIVATED A REPUTATION

AS AN INTENSELY

DRIVEN VISIONARY: 14-HOUR DAYS

DAYS,

REGULAR 10PM MEETINGS

MEETINGS,

EVENINGS ENDING WITH AN

HOUR-AND-A-HALF-LONG TREADMILL RUN

AT MAXIMUM INCLINE
 VARSHAVSKY GAVE THEM A
STARK WARNING:
‘THERE
THERE MAY BE A POINT OF NO RETURN
RETURN.
THEN NOBODY WILL NEED YOUR MONEY’
MONEY
hen we asked former asso-
ciates of Leontiev’s
whether they thought he
had committed the fraud
Russian authorities allege,
a few hypothesised about
what might have hap-
pened, but none had proof. “He maybe lost money
within the bank because of poor risk policies,” one
former bank executive said. “But he’s not a thief.”
(Leontiev dismissed this characterisation of his
risk policies as “ignorant”.)
Several people involved in the bank at the time
questioned the assertion that Leontiev’s problems
withtheauthoritiesstemmedfromhisinvolvement
withNavalny.Solodkiy,whohadinvitedNavalnyto
the bank’s 2012 conference, told us he had spoken
to Leontiev on many occasions about the oppo-
sition leader, and that Leontiev had expressed
solidarity with his political views. But one person
close to the shareholders said “the bank wasn’t
politicalatall”.Zheleznyaksaidhewasn’tsurprised
the western shareholders would think this. “Sergei
and I always emphasised business first and didn’t
discusspoliticsbroadlywithinthebank,”hetoldus.
In January 2021, Zheleznyak created a US
branch of Navalny’s Anti-Corruption Foundation,
24
with the blessing of Navalny’s chief of staff, Leonid
Volkov. Since then, Leontiev has given the founda-
tion a monthly donation of $20,000, Volkov told us.
Before that, Leontiev had been giving to the foun-
dation’s Russian legal entity, Volkov said, but he did
not know how much exactly. Volkov said the foun-
dation attempted to vet Zheleznyak and Leontiev’s
story. “We had to rely on the people we trust. Can I
sign it with my blood that they didn’t steal anything
from their bank? No, I can’t.” But ultimately the
story he found credible was the one told by Leon-
tiev and Zheleznyak, not the Russian government.
Over the course of our reporting, one person
mentioned the name of the senior executive, Peter,
who they said had warned them “something fishy”
was going on at the bank. We independently con-
firmed Peter’s identity with five people and his
stint at the bank with three of them. He rejected
the assertion that Leontiev had been politi-
cally persecuted in Russia because of his links to
Navalny. “This whole story is a story of embezzle-
ment,” he said in a phone call. “There is no political
case… [Leontiev] was not involved in politics. He
was involved in only one thing: stealing money.”
Peterallegedthereasonthecentralbankopened
an investigation into Probusinessbank in the first
place was because it received evidence of embez-
zlement. Then he confided how he knew this: he
had provided the documents himself.
Afewweekslater,overlinguineandparmigiana,
Peter detailed his discoveries at Probusiness-
bank back in 2014. He described thinking over
his possible moves. He knew someone at the Rus-
sian central bank through a mutual acquaintance.
Throughthisperson,theyarrangedtomeetatabar
on the outskirts of Moscow. Peter said he brought a
small sheaf of papers offering some evidence of the
alleged fraud. More covert meetings, arranged via
a burner phone, followed. Each time, the official
asked Peter to provide additional documents.
Peter provided us with the name of the cen-
tral bank official, but said he hadn’t spoken to
them since their last encounter seven years ago.
The official, whose identity and employment at
the bank we independently confirmed, asked to
remain anonymous for their personal safety. They
were pessimistic about the political situation in
Russia following the invasion of Ukraine, calling it
“Orwellian”. But they were adamant that this did
notchangetheunderlyingfactsoftheProbusiness-
bank case. They supported Peter’s account. Peter
had been “extremely scared” during their first
meeting, they recalled. Because Russian courts
require that banking documents be obtained
through legal searches, the central bank was never
able to use any of the files Peter handed over in its
case against Probusinessbank. But those docu-
ments provided a map of where to look.
The central bank official said they never told
anyonewhothewhistleblowerwas,notevencentral
bank colleagues, because they had been so alarmed
about the potential repercussions. Leontiev and
Zheleznyak were correct that there had been polit-
ical pressure in the case, they said, but it was the
central bank official who had been on the receiv-
ing end. Probusinessbank, they claimed, had “very
powerful backers”, and there had been huge strain
on the central bank and on them personally, from
the outset, not to open an investigation into the
lender. They described the situation as like some-
thing in a Tom Clancy novel. They only persevered,
they said, because of the strength of Peter’s docu-
mentation: “The files we submitted were so clear.”
henarrativeofLeontiev’sriseduring
the liberalising of Russia’s economy
after1989,hisfallduringtheincreas-
ingly authoritarian 2010s, and his
escape from political persecution to
freedom-loving America, has an
attractive consistency. It chimes
with what we already know about Putin’s Russia, a
state that aggressively pursues its enemies, with-
out regard for borders or morality. It is this
narrative the New York court cited when it granted
him asylum. But the accounts given by Peter, his
Russian central bank contact and several of Leon-
tiev’s former associates complicate the picture.
Leontiev changed his description of events a
number of times during a series of meetings in
personandovervideo,oftenappearingtohavelittle
patience for detail. “I’m such a person that for me,
it’s much easier to invent something than remem-
ber,” he said, of trying to recall minutiae.
In November, we spoke to Leontiev a final time,
presenting him directly with Peter’s claims. As
we described the allegations over Zoom, his face
remainedimpassive.Heseemedneitherangry,nor
surprised. In Russia “the culture is just lying, lying,
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
 lying,” he told us. His next reaction was that the
person was just a “stupid idiot” who took a “small
chain” of the bigger story but misunderstood it.
Maybe the whistleblower had a hidden agenda.
Maybe the whistleblower was from JP Morgan, he
wondered aloud at another point, without elab-
orating. Whoever it was, he was not interested in
learning the person’s name, he claimed.
As for the way some of the offshore deals were
structured, Leontiev said that it had been up to
other top executives, auditors and consultants
“who were just telling me and giving me the level of
comfort that everything was really structured and
that we’re doing nothing wrong”.
At this point, Reich, Leontiev’s lawyer, inter-
jected, saying that the practices described were
in line with the law and market practice activities,
particularly for mid-sized Russian banks at the
time. “I think it fundamentally mischaracterises
it as something nefarious or an attempt to funnel
or siphon money out of the bank,” he said, “when
it was really functioning as the plumbing for the
finances of the bank itself.” Zheleznyak, who says
he faced extortion from the Russian authorities,
made a similar argument, saying such transac-
tions were a means to support the bank’s capital
requirements and were neither secret nor illegal.
The security loan transactions had involved major
Russian brokerages, he noted.
Leontiev questioned why the Russian author-
ities would have waited a year to bring criminal
charges if they had such impressive evidence, and
asked why the whistleblower had never testified in
any proceeding or presented his evidence in court.
In a follow-up email, Leontiev said courts outside
Russia had “found in our favour and rejected the
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
Russian government’s allegations against us.” He
rejected the central bank official’s assertion that
Probusinessbank’s backers could have influenced
the regulator. “The idea that we could pressure
Nabiullina and [the central bank] somehow is a
joke,” he wrote.
The Russian government’s decision to go after
him was due to his political associations with Nav-
alny. That was the only narrative consistent with
reality, he insisted. “I’m one hundred per cent
sure.” He added: “I was a real threat for them.”
Leontiev and Zheleznyak continue to deny
wrongdoing. Leontiev and his legal team are still
waiting for the resolution of court cases in Liech-
tenstein and other countries. In December,
Interpol granted his appeal to be removed from
its watch list, allowing him to travel, for the first
time since 2015, to see his elderly father in Austria.
Reich alleges Russian authorities manipulated the
situation. “One of the most insidious ways in which
Russia has gone about alleging criminal activity by
Sergei and his colleagues has been to take perfectly
legal and standard corporate transactions and
only show a part of them, or contort their descrip-
tion of them, in order to argue that this is suddenly
embezzlement, or this is a fraudulent conveyance,
or this is misappropriation of funds. And that’s
really, really hard to disprove,” he said.
It is difficult to know whether Leontiev or the
whistleblower is lying, or whether both are telling
their own versions of the truth. Russian entrepre-
neurs who built companies in the post-Gorbachev
period enjoyed rapid growth, courting a blossom-
ing consumer class along with western investors
and becoming millionaires or billionaires in the
process. But corruption was rife. In 2012, the year
before Nabiullina became central bank governor,
$49bn left Russia in illegal capital flight, accord-
ing to official monitoring of the commercial bank
sector. Sometimes the fraud was homegrown,
but at other times it was forced on business lead-
ers by government officials, who pressured them
to hand over shares, cash or a percentage of their
transactions. Those who refused or tried to expose
corruption faced potentially severe consequences.
Magnitsky was only the most notorious example.
JustasnotallRussianslivinginexilewillbepolit-
ical freedom-fighters fleeing Putin’s wrath, so not
all the business reforms implemented in Russia
in the 2010s were born of corrupt intent. Nabiul-
lina’s efforts to clean up the banking sector were
celebrated for years by western policymakers and
institutions.Thecentralbankerhasnowbeensanc-
tioned by the UK and US for enabling Putin’s brutal
war on Ukraine by propping up Russia’s economy.
During our first meeting in Manhattan, Leon-
tiev told us that before the pandemic he and his
wife liked to attend the opera in New York. His
wife liked the music; Leontiev enjoyed soaking
up the gilded atmosphere. Most of all, he liked
the moment when the entire mood in the theatre
changed during a crucial tension in the music. It
was in that moment, he said, that you could finally
ascertain the true artistry of the performance.
“You distinguish, is it real? Is it authentic? Or is it
just something which is a copy?” He paused. “And
that’s the moment I like.”
Courtney Weaver is the FT’s US business and
politics correspondent and a former Moscow
correspondent. Stefania Palma is US legal and
enforcement correspondent
25
Life and love,
 How the restoration of
the oldest pastel maker
in the world, La Maison
du Pastel in Paris,
became much more.

By Imogen Savage
Photography by
Marguerite Bornhauser

colour and shade

 B
ehind an old wooden counter in a
shop in Paris’s Le Marais district, a
woman in a light-blue shirt stretches
for a shelf behind her and slides out
a box. She places it on the counter
and unstacks three hidden layers.
Insideareneatrowsofcolourfulsticks,cushionedin
cotton wool and held in tonal formation. Although
firm, they appear sweet and doughy. Each is indi-
vidually wrapped in a loop of branded paper that
reads “Henri Roché”.
The sticks are handmade pastels, fine enough
for Édouard Vuillard, Edgar Degas, James Abbott
McNeill Whistler, Odilon Redon, Richard Serra,
Winston Churchill – all customers of the oldest
pastel maker in the world, La Maison du Pastel.
The shop dates back to the 18th century.
Through the French Revolution and two world
wars, it has produced pastels in shrinking and
ballooning quantities for some of the most well-
known and innovative artists of the past 250 years.
Inthe1990s,theshopnearlyclosedforgood.Today,
it is co-owned by Isabelle Roché, a distant cousin
of founder Henri Roché, and Margaret Zayer,
Isabelle’s partner, an American lured to Paris in
2010 after reading about the Maison in an article
written by a pastellist, an artist who works in the
medium.Togethertheyhavekeptaliveatraditional
craft that, for a time, seemed destined to die out.
A pastel is a stick of pure colour without almost
any liquid vehicle, just a bit of binder to keep it
together and some chalk or clay to change the tone.
Pastels contain up to 90 per cent pigment, 40 per
cent more than most oil paints. They are powdery
and smooth, matt and vivid. The physical prop-
erties of pastels, the way in which the powder sits
loosely on the surface of the paper, make pastel art-
works both luminous and fragile. “The precious
powder falls off as easily as scales from a butterfly’s
wings,” wrote the French philosopher and critic
Denis Diderot in 1765.
One of the appeals of using pastels was – and
is – their immediacy. Colour is transferred from
hand to paper. No pre-mixing, no drying time.
Degas’ highly colouristic compositions of dancers
in motion were produced from life. With pastels,
he could rapidly sketch the dancers’ tutus, which
shone in blues, whites and yellows, up-lit on stage
by a blazing glow. Unlike paints, pastels cannot be
mixed together on a palette or on the surface of
the artwork. Too much blending creates muddied,
compacted colours, therefore artists need to buy
each individual colour they want to use. In the stu-
dios of pastellists, there are always rows and rows
of coloured sticks.
The Maison du Pastel shop, off rue Rambuteau,
opens only on Thursday afternoons. In this small
window of time, Isabelle and Margaret serve their
customers like they are selling elixirs for the soul.
They spend the rest of the week at their atelier in
a village 60km outside Paris, where they live in a
dilapidated house previously owned by Isabelle’s
ancestors. There they make 1,800 shades by hand,
using a method passed down from Henri Roché Sr,
which has changed little since the 18th century.
Each pastel begins life plucked from a vivid lump of
pigmentdough,whichisbeatenwithamalletinside
a piece of cloth to remove excess water. It is then
weighed and rolled, cut and stamped, dried and
numbered. The only mechanised part of the pro-
cess is the grinding of the pigments, which is now
done by a machine bought in the 1940s by Isabelle’s
28
cousins that spatters the wall behind it with every
colour running through its teeth.
When Isabelle took over in 2000, the Maison
was facing collapse. Her cousin Denise, an elderly
womaninhereighties,workedtherealone,produc-
ing a few colours for a handful of dedicated artists.
The atelier had been run-down since the second
world war and had no heating. Denise was looking
for a successor, and Isabelle, leaving behind a suc-
cessful career as an engineer, was the only person
who wanted the job. Denise warned her she’d never
make a living. But Isabelle needed a radical change.
“[Since childhood] everything was paved for
me and I followed it,” she explains. “I was good at
maths and physics, and I studied engineering, like
my father. Then I was on this route in the petro-
chemical industry for high-flyers. I had everything
I could want materially, and a good social life, but I
wasnothappy.SomethinghitmeonatriptoTanza-
nia.Itwasthewildlife.Ilovenature.Suddenly,Isaw
myself from a distance. When I got back, I started
crying every morning. I wasn’t sleeping. When I
started going to psychotherapy, I realised that this
is my life but this is not who I am. And there was
this Maison, with 300 years of history, making this
beautiful product, on the verge of dying, and at the
time I was fighting for my own life, in a way. I didn’t
know that at the time, but over the years I realised
that, as I was rebuilding La Maison du Pastel, I was
rebuilding myself. It was the first real conscious
choice I had ever made.”
Forging her own path, working largely alone
and pumping her money into the business, Isa-
belle increased the number of shades to 300 in two
years. As pastellists work with individual colours,
the more colours the Maison could offer, the better
it served its customers. It was difficult to do; each
pigment is unique and requires a specific formula.
In seven years, she produced 567 shades.
And then came Margaret. In 2010, the shop was
still in a dilapidated state. “We had no real light-
ing, no floor, no heating. The nitrile gloves we wear
to protect ourselves from the chemicals were not
warm enough,” says Margaret. Herself a pastellist
and self-proclaimed art materials geek, she had
written Isabelle a letter while she was a student
at a liberal arts college in Vermont, so enamoured
was she with the work Isabelle was doing. Isa-
belle invited her to stay for the summer. When the
summer was over she returned to Vermont, but
after graduating from college she returned to the
Maison, and to Isabelle, and they’ve been running
the shop together ever since. “I need to be using my
hands,” says Margaret. She too saw something in
the Maison that made her feel she belonged. “The
Maisonsavedbothofus,inasense.Ourrelationship
is the most foundational element of the company.
We’ve been together for 12 years.”
The story of the Maison is a cacophony of
echoes, of history layering and circling. Isabelle
and Margaret are in the process of organising the
archives. It is no ordinary family junk. This is cul-
turalheritage:jarsofoldpigments,documentsthat
time has turned into artefacts, recipes, pamphlets,
boxesofoldads.“Lookatthisadfor‘Masticomous-
tache dye’,” says Margaret, pulling out a stack of
printed sheets and handing me one. On it a swoon-
ing lady in period costume is sitting on the lap of a
handsome man, fondling his elaborate moustache.
“[The Maison] used to sell cosmetics too.”
The past feels unnervingly present. Successive
owners have left scribbles on the walls and doors.
On the wall of the atelier there is a list of pigments
written in pencil beneath the name “Vuillard”: it is
a customer order.
Édouard Vuillard was a French post-Impres-
sionist artist interested in pastels for their purity
of colour. He captured the indoor life of Parisians
using a patchwork of pattern and colour into which
figures camouflaged or emerged. “The more mys-
tical the painter, the more vivid the colours,” he
wrote in his private journal in August 1890. There
P
are other customer orders dotted around.
astels had a frenzied heyday in the
18th century then fell out of vogue,
along with anything to do with the
Rococo style, after the French Rev-
olution. At that time the Maison had
a succession of owners, based first in
the Ile de la Cité by Notre-Dame, a site where trad-
ers, importers and art academies jostled for space,
and then at different locations in Le Marais. It
wasn’tuntiltowardstheendofthe19thcenturythat
the pastel medium came into its own. “In the 18th
century, artists loved the velvety nature of pastel,
when it was used predominantly in portrait paint-
ing,” says Leila Sauvage, conservation scientist at
theRijksmuseumandapastelspecialist.“Whatyou
see at the end of the 19th century is artists really
experimenting, playing with technique, texture
and surface. [The famous pastellist] Odilon Redon
was exploring with matt and shiny effects.”
By the time Henri Roché Sr took over the Macle
House of Pastels (as La Maison du Pastel was
known) in 1879, artists were hungry for the possi-
bilitiesofferedbythemedium.Theywerenolonger
tryingtoreplicatetheeffectsofoilpaintingbutwere
exploring pastel’s own graphic qualities. It was a
direct, portable, versatile medium. “Henri Roché
waspartofthisrevival,”saysCarolineCorbeau-Par-
sons, curator of graphic arts at the Musée d’Orsay.
“Thereisevidence[intheMaisonarchive]ofletters
from Degas, Vuillard and Whistler that show that
[the Maison was] really collaborating with artists
to give them what they wanted. And they extended
the range of colours available to artists. This is one
of the reasons the Maison was so successful.” Henri
Roché Sr, a trained chemist, had the know-how to
modify recipes to produce the best pastels; he died
in 1925 but passed on his knowledge to his son, also
named Henri Roché.
In 1946, after the second world war, the Rochés
returned from the south of France to find their
premises destroyed and set about rebuilding them
from scratch. They were still in touch with their
artists. Paul Maze, the post-Impressionist, was a
dedicated customer. Winston Churchill, Maze’s
friend, regularly stole his Roché pastels, so Henri
Roché’sdaughterGisèledroppedoffaboxofthemat
Churchill’sofficeduringatriptotheUK.Thethank-
you note that the Rochés received from Churchill’s
secretary was included in a recent exhibition at
Blenheim Palace documenting Maze and Church-
ill’s friendship. Before Henri Roché’s death in 1948,
he left his business to his wife, Reneé, and their
three daughters.
The Maison’s symbiotic relationship with its
artist clients continued under Reneé and then
Huberte, the eldest daughter. “Huberte was a fuck-
ing saint,” says Margaret. “The three sisters had no
children; they lived with a lot of hardship. They did
it all for their artists.” The business was kept afloat
byasmallnumberofartistswhooftenboughtmore
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
 The handmade
pastels were
fine enough
for Édouard
Vuillard, Edgar
Degas, Richard
Serra, Winston
Churchill…

FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022 29

 pastels than they needed. One in particular stood

I
out: Sam Szafran.

nside the shop, the city sounds faint beyond

the archway. The room smells of pastels
andtheoldwoodofthefurniture.“Prussian
Bluesmellssweet,”saysIsabelle,“somereds
too, earth pigments smell musty, other pig-
ments relatively odourless.” Each stick of
colour is a little piece of the world ground down and
formed into something new: California Poppy, Red-
dishGrey,StormGreen,SeraphinBlue,Crepuscular
Violet, Velvet Black, Galaxy Black, Extra Black.
Isabelle looks at the framed posters displayed
on the wall, some from the 1960s, others more
recent. There is something robust yet calm, even
melancholy, about her presence. Her blue-grey
eyes focus on the poster for the Sam Szafran exhi-
bition currently on at the Musée de l’Orangerie in
Paris. It is the first show of the artist’s work – paint-
ings of exaggeratedly warped rooms and staircases,
people overgrown by leaves and vines – since his
death three years ago. It includes a vitrine contain-
ing rows of his Roché pastels. Szafran was one of
the few major contemporary artists who worked
almost exclusively with pastels.
“The exhibition opening was emotional for us,”
says Isabelle. “There are only a few people that
would die for the pastels. He was one.” Szafran
had a deep connection to the shop and to Isabelle’s
cousins. “He bought enough to last him a few life-
times,” she says. “He saw something in them that
he recognised: it was a common sense of suffer-
ing. They had such a hard life.” Szafran, who was
Jewish, survived the Nazi occupation of France as
a small boy. As a young artist, he lived in poverty
but became obsessed with pastels, beginning with
Sennelier sticks then graduating to Rochés. It was
like moving, Szafran said, “from a horse and cart
to a Ferrari”.
“I don’t know what it is about pastels,” continues
Isabelle. “I see them as these objects with a kind of
soul. Each one is different.” She turns to the draw-
ers next to her. “My cousin Huberte would open the
drawers and say, ‘there are people in there.’”
Footsteps tap cleanly across the courtyard and
echo up the white facades. A handsome older gen-
tleman appears, greeting Isabelle and Margaret
with hugs. He is introduced as Jean-Luc Bouquet.
I ask him if he’s an artist, and he turns to me with
a smile. “Yes,” he replies, “a pastellist”. He opens a
small box he bought from Huberte years ago. Inside
is a dark pastel, a blackish-greenish grey. He wants
another. It is not clear if they still make the same
one. Margaret tries to find an alternative, laying
out the boxes. Each pastel offered is dark but with
a different hue, some more green, some more grey.
She fills a square of paper with different coloured
strokes, testing them out. Jean-Luc looks reticent
and decides against them. It is not just about the
colour,it’sthehandling,thetexture,thesaturation.
He is protective over his old stick.
Isabelle is serving an American tourist with
purple hair. “Hey,” says Margaret, walking over to
them. She is small and strong and has the face of a
‘I don’t know what it
woman from a Renoir painting, her mouth always
on the verge of a witty remark and sharp observant
is about pastels. I see
eyes. “Can I take a photo? I’m collecting images of
customers who match our pastels.” “Sure,” says the
them as these objects
tourist and bows her head next to the “Aubergine” with a kind of soul’
range, a box of purples. The underside of her hair
is a more silvery purple. As Margaret pulls out her Isabelle Roché

30 FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022

 phone, the tourist speaks from her upside-down
position. “You know, my hair is not technically
‘aubergine’. My colourist calls it ‘unicorn’.”
A growing number of artists on Instagram post
about their use of Roché pastels, arranging them in
pleasing displays. The Maison is collaborating with
some of them. “My ancestors were always mod-
ernising, so we should too,” says Isabelle. On social
media, there is a sense that people want to pos-
sess these colours not only for drawing or painting
– they want to wear them, to pose with them. The
iridescent range – the golds, silvers and shimmer-
ing “Scarab” collection of dark, opulent boudoir
tones – and the hot-pink “Flamboyants” range of
six half-sticks look almost like make-up. Margaret
wasamazedtofindoldadvertisingdesignsforahot-
pink range in the archive. She and Henri Roché had
had the same idea separately. “The past, the pre-

T
sent, are all a jumble here,” she says.

he next day, Margaret and Isabelle

are making a new pastel colour
using an earth pigment found in
theirarchive.Lineduponawooden
board, the wet sticks look like tiny
loaves of bread ready for baking.
Producing a useable pastel stick of high quality
is difficult to do. The method of making them by
hand that Isabelle and Margaret use, one honed
over centuries, is sensitive to the natural propen-
sities of each pigment. “Something is lost when the
process is mechanised – the pastels are treated as a
uniform product and the vibrancy of colour is com-
promised,”saysMargaret.Theearthpigmentssuck
upwater;somesyntheticpigmentsareveryfineand
unpredictable; carbon black – which the Maison
uses for their blackest black, the blackest availa-
ble in pastel form – is friable yet greasy and very
difficult to make into a stick. They need to balance
the other elements of the pastel accordingly – the
binder,thefillers–andhandlewithcare.TheAmer-
ican artist Richard Serra ordered large quantities
of their blackest black for his “Ramble Drawings”
series. They had to make a lot of it very quickly.
Isabelleoffersmecherriesandfigsfromthetrees
outside. I can’t help thinking of them as Margaret
might, as potential pastel colours. “We can’t go for
a quiet walk,” says Isabelle. “Well, I can. I switch
off when I walk, but Margaret sees colour every-
where.” The pair sit in their newly restored atelier
surrounded by old wooden drawers filled with pas-
tels. Through the window you can see the garden
and dilapidated house. “It’s been tough,” says Mar-
garet. “At the end of the day, there’s nobody saving
us. We got out of the dark by doing good work”.
We watch a home video on their computer.
Huberte, then in her sixties, turns to the camera,
hugeeyes,laughing.Standingagainstthepatterned
walltilesinherapron,thescenelookslikeaVuillard
pastelpainting.Denisecomesdownthestepswitha
similar smile and large eyes. Each of the sisters has
hair dyed a different colour. Gisèle, the most enig-
matic of the three, a poet, is elsewhere. The person
Margaret Zayer was
behind the camera is Alfred Straub, a German
first lured to Paris after
former prisoner of war sent to the Maison during
reading about the Maison
the reparations process. He helped to rebuild the
in an article written by a
atelier after the Germans looted it. Straub liked
pastellist
it so much there he stayed an extra year. It’s now
the 1980s. He returns to the Maison to visit. There,
the house with its veranda, fig tree, cherry tree. A
cacophony of echoes. Inside the drawers, there are
people in there.

FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022 31

DISCOVER EXCLUSIVE
PROPERTIES WORLDWIDE
Visit ftpropertylistings.com
 Inside: ‘Humans seem to thrive on the existence of others’ suffering’ p46
Appetites
The Gastronome Seldon Curry and his partner Liberty Wenham
Tim
used to run Wallfish in Bristol. It was an idiosyn-
cratic little boît that once belonged to Keith Floyd.
A neighbourhood place (if your neighbourhood
Hayward is Clifton) that featured some top-notch creative
cooking based on classics and great ingredients.
Then I discovered that, after Wallfish closed,
The wild west’s the couple had washed up at the Seaside Boarding
House in Burton Bradstock, near Bridport, in
new wave Dorset. As it happens, I know the area well. There’s
a very popular beach café down there and there is
“surf”, for people who go in for that sort of thing.
On the clifftop to one side of the beach stands a
large Edwardian pile that looks like it has been, in
order, the scene of a famously salacious murder, a
wartime hospital, a private asylum and a school for
the dim sons of mid-ranking army officers.
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER
MARCH 19/20
17/18
2022
2022 ILLUSTRATION BY SIMON BAILLY
Fortunately, the only incarnation I can actually
verify is the latest: that it was taken over about 10
years ago by the creators of the Groucho Club, clad
inwhiteclapboardlikeanEdwardHopperpainting
and now enjoys quiet notoriety as a discreet
seaside retreat for Soho types. The restaurant
occupies a sort of glazed veranda, like the bridge of
a liner, facing across the storm-thrashed Solent to
Portland, Plymouth, Biscay and Fitzroy.
I regard whipped, smoked cod roe as the parfait
de foie de volaille de nos jours – a bit of a cliché but too
bloody good to be rid of it. Smoke flavours mellow
with age, but here the roe has a fresh, coniferous
tang, maybe from a local smokery – one that didn’t
get the memo to be safe and stick with oak. It was
creamy and invigorating, rich, yet it roused rather
than dulled the tongue.
33
 Appetites

Which was good because there was a twice-baked Westcombe

cheddar soufflé on the menu and, as you well know, I’m contrac-
tually obliged to order it. It was as glorious as it was supposed
to be, and allying it with spinach and hazelnut was novel
and welcome.
Just occasionally, I see something on a menu that makes me
break into a wolfish grin. I like chopped steak tartare. It’s usually
enough to delight me by itself but, when served with bone-
marrow fried bread and “Big Mac sauce”… I mean… that’s not
food, it’s bait for a slow-moving, bottom-feeding critic.
I’ve long held that there’s nothing of any interest or flavour
in a Big Mac, except the sauce. The bread is the definition of
inconsequential. Iceberg isn’t lettuce and the rissole is a gesture
at texture. Nothing in the damn thing that isn’t a vehicle for the
sauce. There’s no secret to it – ketchup, yellow mustard, chopped
onions and pickles, perhaps a little Tabasco, Worcestershire
sauce, paprika and some dill. Brilliant, huh? And as Curry has
cleverly spotted… all the stuff you’d put in a well-tempered tar-
tare. It’s a brilliant idea and, tangentially, it’s made me reappraise
whatever towering culinary genius dreamt up the Big Mac.
There’s obviously plenty of access to good seafood down here,
so it seemed sensible to try the brill. Good God, it’s an inspiring
fish, related to the fashionable turbot but slightly longer and less
rhomboid. Some people find the flesh mild but, for me, the key
thing is that the major muscles are thicker even on smaller fish.
I reckon that makes for a sweeter, subtler flavour, particularly
when roasted on the bone. I’m probably deluding myself but,
when it’s done so the skin crisps, served in a pool of seaweed hol-
landaise, it’s bloody lovely anyway. A bunch of rainbow chard,
juicyandjustabitastringent,wasaninspiredfinishtoaplatethat
was otherwise so rich it somehow doesn’t pay tax.

T
THE SEASIDE
BOARDING HOUSE
he wind by this point was hammering rain into the
Cliff Road
windowslikespentbuckshot.Thisproducesahor- Burton Bradstock
mone in the Englishman’s brainstem which drives Dorset DT6 4RB
him to order comforting things. Confit duck leg is theseasideboardinghouse.com
just the ticket, with a potato and black pudding Starters: £9-£13
cake that’s basically an aggressively ambitious Mains: £22-£32
hash brown, cabbage and prunes. Desserts: £9-£10
Exactly the same hormone means he can’t order a normal
salad. It would be madness in what I conservatively estimated to
be a Force 7 squall. Once it starts to whip spindrift off the top of
four-metre waves, we obviously have to take scurvy into account,
so Curry has arranged shaved cabbage, hazelnut, parmesan and
truffle, an antiscorbutic you can consume, not only without diffi-
culty but with considerable pleasure.
Salt air in my nostrils instantly raises my personal bar for
chips. When you’re in sight of the sea they’ve got to be superla-
tive and these were. There were also fried Brussels sprouts with
tahini yoghurt, and dukkah, which reminded me of being cat-
astrophically drunk in the Jemaa el-Fnaa: challenging in many
ways, messy, but sensorily unforgettable.
My attitude to desserts is a matter of public record. I find
they’re too often ill considered and underpowered. The Seaside
Boarding House, though, should qualify as some sort of sanato-
rium for the dessert-deprived. Vanilla ice cream came in a ball
thatwouldhavenourishedalloftheFamousFive,toppedwithsea
salted caramel. It’s fortunate Proust is dead because ginger loaf,
toffee sauce, walnuts and clotted cream would have made him
question his life choices. And there was a slow-cooked fondant
made with chocolate so dark and intense it wasn’t actually sweet,
a deficiency compensated for by plums, honeycomb and crème
fraîche that was apparently portioned using a mechanical digger.
Wayfinding nerds among you will know that, by a strange
and beautiful twist of fate, Magnetic, True and Grid North have
recently coincided over West Dorset. I hope this will make it
easier for you to navigate there at full speed.

@timhayward; timhayward

34 FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022


FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
Recipe
Rowley
Leigh
Orvieto chicken
I first met Alastair Little at
university, more than 50 years ago.
When he died in August, I had not
seen him for three years: he had
migrated to Australia, where the
pandemic and his own infirmity
prevented him returning to his
homeland. We had followed parallel
paths for most of our lives, although
Alastair always seemed to be
leading the way.
By the mid-1980s we were both
making a name for ourselves, and
while I was more conventionally
versed in French haute cuisine
and Alastair had a more eclectic
approach, we were strongly
influenced by the new wave of
French cooks that had created
nouvelle cuisine. We both drifted
towards Italy. Once he started
teaching there, he became
obsessive. He would spend an hour
or two talking – and gosh he could
talk – about making pasta e ceci, a
seemingly simple and rustic Tuscan
amalgam of pasta and chickpeas in a
tomato sauce. The Orvieto chicken
was another obsession. Cooking it
now, I am back at Alastair’s culinary
school at La Cacciata, where the
scent of abundant wild fennel fills
the air, lazing in the pool as I gaze
across the valley to Orvieto – and
the glittering horizontal stripes of
the duomo that dominates the town.
There was no middle ground
with Alastair: he always spoke with
huge and passionate conviction, and
yet had the strength of character
to constantly evolve: the recipe for
Orvieto chicken is a case in point.
Described as unimprovable in his
Soho kitchen book, published in
the 1990s, it was much adjusted in
its last rendering on his website in
2019. When looking up the recipe
online, I was shocked to find it
replicated on half a dozen websites,
all copying Alastair’s recipe word-
for-word with no mention of the
man himself. He would have had a
word – or two – to say about that.
More columns at ft.com/leigh
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDY SEWELL
SERVES FOUR
Needless to say, I have
adapted the recipe
somewhat. The chickens
available in Orvieto – as in
most of Italy – are
excellent free-range birds,
well muscled and full of
flavour: try to find the best
bird you can.
• 400g potatoes
• 1 free-range chicken,
weighing about 1.8kg
with its giblets
• 6 tbs olive oil
• Fennel, in any form
possible, wild or bronze
stalks, fennel seeds or a
bulb with the stalks and
fronds of two more bulbs
• 30 large garlic cloves
• 1 lemon
• 20 stoned black olives
• 2 sprigs of rosemary
• 150ml dry white wine
• 300ml chicken stock
• 100g chicken livers
1. Peel the potatoes and
cut them into generous
centimetre cubes. Cover
in cold water, add salt,
bring to the boil and
simmer for five minutes so
that they are parboiled but
not cooked through. Drain
and refresh in cold water.
2. Cut through the centre
of the gizzard, rinse it out
and then pull off its tough
outer skin. Cut into small
cubes like the potatoes. Do
the same for the liver and
heart. Heat a large frying
pan with three tablespoons
of olive oil and add the
giblets, turning them so
they are lightly browned
before adding the
potatoes. Continue to cook
them until the potatoes
are well coloured and
cooked though. Finely
chop the fennel and two
of the garlic cloves then
add to the potatoes, along
with the grated zest of the
lemon and half the olives,
roughly chopped. Season
this stuffing well and leave
to cool.
3. Season the interior
of the chicken and then
fill it with the stuffing.
Generously salt the
chicken skin and then
coat with two tablespoons
of olive oil. Place in a
cast-iron oven dish (or
similar) and put it in a
hot oven (230C) for 20
minutes, then add the
remaining cloves of garlic
and the rosemary. Turn
the heat down to 190C
and cook for a further
50 minutes. Remove
the chicken from the
pan and let it rest in a
warming oven.
4. Pour the white wine into
the garlic-laden dish and
scrape up all the chicken
juices, reducing the wine
by half before adding the
chicken stock. Let this
simmer nicely for 10
minutes. In the meantime,
trim the remaining
chicken livers and cut into
small pieces before frying
them very briefly in a very
little olive oil. Scoop the
stuffing out of the chicken
and keep warm in the
middle of a large serving
dish. Cut the chicken
into eight joints and add
briefly to the pan with the
garlic and gravy along
with the remaining olives
and the livers. Check
the gravy for seasoning
and then arrange the
chicken around the
stuffing. Spoon garlic,
olives, liver and juice over
and around the chicken
and take triumphantly
to the table. No further
accompaniment
is necessary.
Wine
White wine is perfectly
acceptable although
most Orvieto whites are
none too exciting. My
preference would be for a
Sangiovese: Chianti would
be great or a good Rosso
di Montalcino, robust and
slightly rustic, would be
even better.
35
 Appetites

Wine

Jancis
Robinson
Some seriously swish
Swiss grapes

E
veryyearMichelChapoutier,
the Rhône Valley’s most
cosmopolitan wine
producer, comes to London
to present his latest single-vineyard
releases. He loves an audience and
he loves top quality champagne.
So he sits on a platform with a
glass constantly filled from a
bottle in an ice bucket beside him
and pontificates, while taking us
through his babies from the Rhône,
Alsace and Roussillon.
This year, at the Corinthia
hotel, he did not include any of the
M Chapoutier wines from Provence,
Beaujolais, Spain, Portugal
or Australia. But he did drop
something of a bombshell (in a wine
context, at least).
Chapoutier, who has markedly
expanded the geographical reach
of his family company of late, was
asked whether he was consider-
ing investing in English wine. His
response was unexpected in two
respects. Yes, he said, if he were to
make a move, it would be to plant
the Chasselas grape in the Scilly
Isles. He famously loves granitic
soils, and there are already one or This chimed with me because I Onewhiff of As I tasted my way through 37 of
two vineyards on the Scillies, so the had recently – and not before time aChasselasand the Swiss wines on show, Simon
choice of location was not so sur- – fallen for fine Swiss Chasselas at Hardy told me that the practice is
prising, but we were dumbfounded a tasting in London organised by I’mimmediately now much more precise; guided
by his choice of grape. Simon Hardy and Jean-François transportedtothe by the various characteristics of
Bar one corner of the wine Genoud, a pair of Swiss wine evan- slopesandskilifts vintage and terroir rather than
world, Chasselas is best known as gelists who act as an enthusiastic being automatic.
a table grape rather than a white bridge between the region’s produc- Besides, the wines at the London
wine grape. Yet in the scenically ers and UK importers. tastingwereinfinitelysuperiortomy
terraced, south-facing, Unesco- I spent quite a lot of time in introduction to the grape, with those
protected vineyards of the Vaud Switzerland in my early twenties fermentation vat, the process listed in the box being especially
canton on Lake Geneva in Switzer- but knew Chasselas only by its known as chaptalisation that used impressive. In some respects, Swiss
land, Chasselas is considered the Valais synonym Fendant, which I to be routine in Switzerland. Chasselas is not unlike Sylvaner (or
finest wine grape of all. Chapoutier associated with cheap litre-bottles One whiff of a Chasselas and I’m Silvaner), and, like Sylvaner, surely
was unbending in his enthusiasm of extremely neutral wine on offer immediately transported to the no one would accuse it of being
for this potential new project: “It’s at Migros, the Swiss supermarket slopes and ski lifts. (As I hope some showy. (Is there perhaps an analogy
more interesting to be a leader not chain, and at mountain restaurants. FT readers will be this month.) to be drawn with the Swiss people?)
a follower,” he crowed, “and the At that time these basic Fendants But today there are much tighter It’s innately subtle, sometimes a
potential of Chasselas is amazing. It were probably bolstered by controls on blending wine imported little saline, dry and relatively low
could become the British grape, not imported plonk and stiffened by intoSwitzerland,andchaptalisation alcohol – rarely more than 13 per
just the Swiss one!” copious additions of sugar to the is apparently no longer the norm. cent – and responds well, really

FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022 ILLUSTRATION BY LEON EDLER 37

 Appetites

filling the palate, to being chilled. It examples made from Swiss grape
is also uncannily ageworthy. Jancis recommends... specialities such as Petite Arvine
Eight years ago, I was sent six and Amigne.
pairs of bottles of some top Swiss SWISS FAVOURITES As for the reds, Pinot Noir, and
Chasselas from its Swiss heartland, All wines are made from the white wine grape to a lesser extent the Gamay of
the Grand Cru of Dézaley in the Chasselas except where stated otherwise. Beaujolais, dominated the tasting
Vaud canton. I tasted them and – except for the Merlot that is the
begrudgingly wrote in my notes VAUD • Blaise Duboux, Haut de VALAIS speciality of Switzerland’s Italian-
that only one of the wines, the 1984 • Les Frères Dutruy, Pierre Vieilles Vignes • Caves Orsat, Fendant speaking region, Ticino. The most
vintage of the delightfully named Les Terrasses 2020 2020 (and 2016) Treize Etoiles Fendant successful Pinots were those grown
Chemin de Fer bottling from Luc Dézaley Grand Cru Dézaley Grand Cru 2021 Valais 12.5% in German Switzerland where they
12.8% 12.5% £18 Yorkshire Vintners
Massy, knocked my socks off. Alpine Wines import About £33 for the • Dom des Muses,
tended to have a bit more body and
As preparation for this article, other Dutruy wines 2011 and 2008 Tradition Petite Arvine flavour than those grown elsewhere.
I tasted its duplicates at the end but not this, the debut from Gauntleys Tradition 2020 Valais (Much to their disappointment,
of last month and was much more vintage of a new wine of Nottingham 13.3% (relatively rare Messrs Hardy and Genoud were
impressed. Partly this was because • Dom La Colombe, La • Luc Massy, Chemin Swiss white wine unable to rustle up any wines from
the London tasting had allowed Colombe Noire Hors de Fer 2020 Dézaley grape) the Geneva canton.)
Série 2019 La Côte 13% Grand Cru 13% £43.90 Hedonism
me to put the wines in context, but £39.09 Vida £47.90 (2021)
These wines are not cheap, but
it was also because the majority of Wines & Spirits Hedonism, £47 (2016) GERMAN SWITZERLAND norisviticultureinSwitzerland,and
these wines, whites ranging from • Louis Bovard, Le Albion Wines • Donatsch, Completer the Swiss import far more wine than
14 to 46 years old, were still in such Méridien Saint- • Dom de la Pierre Malanserrebe 2016 they export, most of which goes to
good condition. Admittedly, the Saphorin 2018 Lavaux Latine, L’Yvorne Graubünden 14.5% Germany. But both at this London
1976 was past it but all vintages 12.8% 2019 Yvorne Grand (rare Swiss grape) tasting and in an earlier encounter,
£34.95 Harrison’s Cru 12.5% Sold out from
from 1997 to 2008 were still very Wines of Ealing Howard Ripley
I was seriously impressed by a Chas-
lively and had gained more interest • Louis Bovard, TICINO • Donatsch, Passion selas (labelled with my old friend
from their long time in bottle. Médinette 2016 • Brivio, Riflessi d’Epoca Pinot Noir 2017 Fendant) from the relatively large
With the decidedly honourable Dézaley Grand Cru 2016 Ticino 13.2% Graubünden 13.5% Caves Orsat. Their Treize Étoiles
exception of Rieslings, not many 12.5% (Merlot red) (Pinot Noir red) 2021 can be found for under £20,
other white wines of this age would £36.95 Harrison’s bestofwines.co.uk £304 for six much cheaper than most Swiss
Wines of Ealing Howard Ripley
have survived so well. wines, and would serve as a good
It was noticeable that the white introduction to this elusive variety.
wines in the London tasting that had I’m afraid I cannot guarantee
been made from non-Swiss grape that my recommendations will be
varieties, such as Sauvignon Blanc easy to find, even for those planning
and Chardonnay, were less success- to ski in Switzerland. I recommend,
ful than all the Chasselas examples. however,thatanycuriouswinelover
TheoneandonlyvarietalCompleter MORE TASTING NOTES
has at least one taste of a well-made
from German-speaking Switzerland Tasting notes on Purple Pages
Swiss Chasselas or Fendant.
was really fine, however, and among of JancisRobinson.com and
the whites from the Valais canton some international stockists More columns at
were some especially distinctive on Wine-searcher.com ft.com/jancis-robinson

38 FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022


‘Tiny Burger’ (Cancer Benefit, Southampton, New York), 2006
Photography The first event Jessica Craig-Martin
was hired to photograph was a high
Other
finance firm’s office Christmas
party. It was the early 1990s, and
she couldn’t believe what she saw.
“There were secretaries having
their asses grabbed by drunk men in
people’s
tacky Christmas ties and pinstriped
suits,” she says. “It was like time
travelling to the 1950s.”
It was also like being exposed to
parties
“a tribe I’d heard about but never
seen” – and it provoked a range of
visceral emotions in Craig-Martin.
“Having been raised in the art
world” – her father Michael is a well-
known artist – “where sexism and
power dynamics absolutely exist
WhatphotographerJessicaCraig-Martin but are very differently manifested,
I was unprepared for such
discoveredoverthecourseofher exuberantly sexist cliches,” she says.
career documenting exclusiveevents. “I was horrified, but a part of me –
the photographer part – loved it.”
In 1997, Craig-Martin was hired
Introduction by Harriet Fitch Little by Anna Wintour, Vogue’s editor,
Appetites
to document the charity galas,
opening nights and private parties
that sustain high society. While
working at these events, she also
continued to capture tightly cropped
details of hand gestures, sartorial
embellishments, flesh and a lot
of food. These photographs have
been widely exhibited and Craig-
Martin’s work is in the collections of
the Whitney Museum of American
Art and the Guggenheim, among
others. She is currently completing a
memoir (to be published next year)
which takes its working title from an
RSVP she once sent by mistake: “I
Regret I’ll Be Able To Attend”.
Food has been central to her
work, particularly for what its gaudy
presentation and conspicuous
consumption tells us about wealth
and those who wield it. Here she
shares some lessons learnt from
watching the one per cent feasting –
or fasting – with their tribe.
39
 ‘The Party’s Over’ (Rita Hayworth Benefit for Alzheimer’s, Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York), 1999
Caviar is The first thing I do when I arrive at
a party is to check what the salmon
is wearing. You can always tell a lot
couture about an event from the sartorial
choices of the fish. It’s wise to
approach with caution – might that
be halibut draped in a glistening
full-length cream sauce? Yes! And
what are these shiny nodules that
decorate the sauce? On closer
inspection, they turn out to be
caviar. A lot of caviar. Because, at
these parties, overdoing it is merely
the starting point.
The photo “Oysters, Caviar,
Snow” was taken on New Year’s Eve
1999 in Gstaad, where the Italian
40
fashion designer Valentino was
hosting a star-studded party at
his palatial Alpine chalet. Female
guests had been carried from
their SUVs to the door by liveried
valets, their red-soled Louboutins
raised high above the snowdrifts.
Oysters were flown in specially
on a private jet, and sumptuously
arrayed on a bed of fresh Gstaad
snow. At the last moment, however,
it was decided that these delicacies
looked underdressed. A quick
stop at the caviar station provided
the solution – caviar. A mantle
of the best endangered fish roe
conferred instant glamour – a tip
worth remembering if your outfit
just isn’t working.
In the other photograph,
“The Party’s Over”, the subject
is festooned with intricate black
beading. Her dress clings to her
re-made and re-modelled figure,
glistening like thousands of tiny
Beluga eggs. The wearer confided
to me that her garment was a
$250,000 couture Dior which, now
that it had been seen on her in Paris
and New York, would be retired
permanently. I wondered which
would cost more; the Dior, or a dress
actually made using the world’s
best caviar?
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
 Appetites

‘Oysters, Caviar, Snow’ (Private Party, Gstaad), 1999

Tiny is
One trend I have noted while
photographing luxurious parties
and galas is the proliferation of
classy fast food being served – with one
crucial difference. It is never at
the traditional size. Hot dogs,
hamburgers, fish sticks, fried
chicken and pizzas – usually
shunned in such image-conscious
circles – become gasp-worthy
exotic delights when served at
doll size. Whether miniature
meatballs, Lilliputian grilled cheese
sandwiches (as seen in the photo)
or tiny dumplings served with
mini-chopsticks – they are scooped
up with glee by manicured hands
weighted with Breguet watches and
snarling Cartier leopard rings.

‘Tiny Grilled Cheese’ (Cancer Benefit, Southampton), 2006

FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022 41

 ‘Safe Champagne’ (Southampton Hospital Benefit Gala, New York), 2007
Beware In the summer of 2007, there was
an inexplicable outbreak of rubber
gloves in the Hamptons. This
rubber was long before Covid and there
was no discernible reason for this
gloves sudden epidemic of caution. Yet
everywhere you looked, latex-clad
hands loomed out of the summer
dusk, offering corn on the cob or
butter-lubricated red-and-white
fleshed lobster rolls at grand
charity galas, tented garden parties
or clambakes on the beach.
The photograph “Safe
Champagne” shows a man being
42
served by a be-gloved bartender.
The picture was taken at the most
prestigious event of the Hamptons’
“season”, The Southampton
Hospital Benefit Gala. The
competition for invitations to this
event is famously Darwinian, and I
was curious to see what all the fuss
was about.
On arrival, it looked pretty
much the same as the myriad
other white-tent events of
summer in the area – stilettos
on the lawn, hors d’oeuvres on
crackers turned instantly limp
by the humid Southampton
air, the usual chit-chat about
the price of mooring yachts in
St Barths at New Year or dismay
at the gaucheness of some newly
admitted member to the country
club – from the usual guests
who’d all seen one another too
recently at other events to even
feign excitement.
I concluded that this must
be one of those galas that relies
exclusively on its exclusivity. One
must attend in order to prove that
one can.
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
 Appetites

Asceticism
equals
power
‘Ms Bass’ Bread’ (Brice Marden Retrospective Opening, MoMA, New York), 2006

“You can never be too rich or too
thin.” This quote, attributed to
Wallis Simpson, the American
socialite who caused King Edward
VIII to abdicate, seems to sum up
existence for many women at the
upper echelons through the ages.
It sounds a tad flippant but speaks
to the cruelty with which women
at the top of any social or financial
pile are judged by everyone, but
in particular by their peers. In
this world, the need to be thin is
not about being attractive in a
traditional sexual sense; it is a show
of power through asceticism.
Anne Bass was thrown into the
social spotlight when, in 1965, at
the age of 23, she married Texan
oil tycoon Sid Bass. She lived most
of her life under intense scrutiny,
which she navigated with a grace
and self-discipline that must have
irritated her would-be detractors.
A lifelong champion of art, Bass’s
characteristic restraint is on display
in this picture of her place setting
at the dinner for Brice Marden’s
MoMA retrospective in 2006. The
bread roll has been toyed with. She
has broken and rearranged it in
order to participate in the ritual of
the meal. I imagine the courses she
was served were treated similarly.
Bass has just left the party, her
cutlery apparently untouched.

Swerve
the shrimp
Shrimp cocktails do not require
utensils. There my understanding
of shrimp as a party food ends,
since they are unquestionably one
of the smelliest foods in existence.
I am mystified that party guests
will, within seconds of arriving,
ruin hours – or days – of hard-
earned pulchritude and preening in
order to binge on a pretty common
crustacean. Over the years, I have
been air-kissed by thousands of
overdressed shrimp-eaters to the
point that I am now incapable of
eating catered shrimp – or almost
anything served on a tray. Call it
PPPTSD or “Party Photographer’s
Post-Traumatic Shrimp Disorder”.
TRUNK ARCHIVE

In my book, party shrimp should

be abolished. Then again, so
should air-kisses.
‘Pollock Shrimp’ (Jackson Pollock Retrospective, MoMA, New York), 1998

FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022 43

 The Humourist
Robert
Shrimsley
Thanks Netflix. Who’s going to
expose our prejudices now?
Wit & Wisdom
It is always a worry when you lose
a really valuable social signal, that
handy little tell that allows you to
place someone and their attitudes.
For the past two years, the Duke
and Duchess of Sussex have been
the supreme signifier of someone’s
political and social values. A strong
opiniononHazMegusedtobeanear-
foolproof indicator of every other
instinct and prejudice. Now, with
their latest Netflix extravaganza, the
boundaries have blurred.
Once, all you had to do was
mention the couple to learn
everything you needed to know.
Some people were furious at them;
some were furious at the rest of the
royals or at the media. Others would
be furious at you for even thinking
that they were the kind of people
who would ever have an opinion on
them. Passion was the key indicator.
Moderate, nuanced opinions are
clearly terribly uninformative and
indicative of uncool centrism.
44 ILLUSTRATION BY LUCAS VARELA
A close encounter with a HazMeg- A close encounter
hater almost certainly portended with a Meghan-
a conversation peppered with the
word “woke”, some BBC bashing
hater usually
and a bit of musing over why the portended a
England team were still taking conversation
the knee. There was a 90 per cent peppered with
likelihood of lockdown scepticism the word ‘woke’
and a high probability of concern
about cancel culture, although they
wouldn’t mind if “someone would
cancel the Sussexes”. They resented
“virtue-signalling” causes such as
diversity or saving the planet and
could be trusted to be furious about
political correctness infecting the
National Trust. In particular, they
did not want to “erase history” by
introducing historical facts into the
information about stately homes.
It was too simplistic to say that
deep HazMeg hatred signalled
support for Brexit – the monarchy is
popularwithRemainers too–though
Leavers probably over-indexed
among the most committed haters.
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER 17/18 2022
 Critics were disproportionately Games 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
older and white. A ROUND ON THE LINKS
Not everyone in this category by James Walton
00 00 00 00 00 00 00

was Nigel Farage. Some were Piers

9 10
Morgan. For the couple also enrage
the tabloid press, not least in their All the answers here are linked 00 00 00
petulant refusal to accept the Daily in some way. Once you’ve
Mail as the arbiter of their conduct. spotted the connection, any 11 12
A subset of this were the “loved him, you didn’t know the first time
00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
hated her” group, who feel sorry around should become easier.
for Harry but think he has been 13 15
1. What’s the only Henry James 14
manipulated by his Hollywood wife.
novel with a bird in the title?
Fervent fans also carried baggage. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 16
Passionatepro-Meghanismprobably 2. Which now common two-
portended a dislike of JK Rowling, a word phrase was first used in 17 18 19
desire to decolonise the curriculum, a 1989 US Senate Session to 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
20 21
BBC bashing and a doubt over Establish National Energy Policy
whether we should be so attached to Reduce Global Warming? 22 23 24
to Churchill just because he helped
3. Which highway, from Key
defeat the Nazis. They were mostly 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
West, Florida to the Canadian
younger, probably voted Remain,
border, is the longest north- 25 26
might vote Green. If older, they’d laid
south road in the US?
flowers for Princess Di. 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
The third group were the “I’m 4. Which BBC sitcom of the
not interested” crowd, though a 2000s was set in The Grapes 27 28
vehement indifference normally pub in Stockport?
signalled a tinge of republicanism The Across clues are straightforward, while the Down clues are cryptic.
5. Which American newspaper
accompanied by some BBC bashing.
was bought by Jeff Bezos in 2013?
Then came the “faults on both
sides” people, who are instinctively 6. Baguettes, barrels and clutches
THE CROSSWORD
unsure about the Duchess but, well, are types of which accessories? No 619. Set by Aldhelm
you know, they’ve watched The
7. In the Lake District,
Crown. They saw what the Queen did ACROSS 28 Part of a 10 Payment with
Kirkstone, Honister and
to Princess Margaret. There is also a 1 Flow back, poem (6) warning for end
Whinlatter are all what?
liberal queasiness against hating on diminish (6) of the race (9, 4)
a biracial woman. If only Harry had 8. Which Andrew Lloyd 4 Smart clothes, DOWN 15 One making plans
married Gwyneth Paltrow, who they Webber musical is based colloquially (4, 4) 1 Make fun of one with discretion over
could dislike without guilt. on a British film of 1961? 9 Tool for boring (5) terrible clue after one old chemical
Anyway, until recently one could 10 Mental perception, free start (8) company, at first (9)
9. Which humanitarian
rely on this taxonomy. But with understanding (9) 2 Reconstructed a 16 Country sank
organisation began in the 1860s
overexposure and perhaps one 11 Brassica porch with bid for with lira getting
as the International Committee
series too far, all kinds of previously vegetable (7) building material (9) destroyed (3, 5)
for Relief to the Wounded?
moderate people are turning off 12 Proceeds, 3 Buck sadness, 18 Longed for time
the couple. Things have shifted so 10. What was the only number earnings (7) we hear (6) to end changes (7)
that now only diehard fans can be one single by the band Europe? 13 Heavy metallic 5 Group of soldiers 20 Study hard at
counted upon to conform to their element (4) rightly upset university – second-
stereotype. The self-exiled Sussexes 14 Traitor, renegade (8) about baby (5, 8) rate one, initially (4, 2)
seem to be losing the soggy centre. 17 Dawn (8) 6 Toast or tea, to 21 Eccentric one
Those who once veered towards 19 Mark left by an start with – kind in manuscript’s
themarebeginningtovoiceconcerns old wound (4) that’s cooked (5, 2) one accepted by
that they might be “overdoing it” or 22 Area of fruit 7 Straighten newspaper (6)
getting bored with “new” revelations trees (7) wonky nail without 23 Encourage
that aren’t that dramatic. Others 24 Unimportant (7) hammering, revolutionary
suggest that being paid huge sums to 25 Forever (9) ultimately (5) fighter with little
bleat on about their suffering from a 26 Pretend (5) 8 When going up, hesitation (5)
gazillion-dollar mansion might be a Solution to Crossword No 618 27 Conceptual to make a home is
form of cultural insensitivity when A A T R A N S M I S S I O N A framework, model (8) most sensible (6)
people back home are struggling to C A I A I A A A N A C A S A F
pay their energy bills. I N G O T A M U S S O L I N I
R A H A C A O A I A R A E A S
The problem is that we needed
this kind of easy signal to navigate
C A T C H E S O N A E A R T H THE PICTURE ROUND
our way through a polarised society.
U
M
A
A
K
N
A
H
A
A
A
N
A
D
A
L
C
E
A
A
C
A
A
S
A
P
A
E
I
N
by James Walton
Now we may have to go back to S A I A D A I A R A R A T A G
Who or
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E A A A R A P A A A A A R A A what do
and Meghan performed a valuable
service. If only there was some way
we could honour them.
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Y A O A N A E A O A V A A A E add up to?
A S U B T E R R A N E A N A A
robert.shrimsley@ft.com
@robertshrimsley
ANSWERS ON PAGE 6

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DECEMBER
19/20
17/18
2022
2022 45
 Wit & Wisdom
The Questionnaire
Courtney Pine
Musician and broadcaster
Interview by Hester Lacey
1. What is your earliest memory?
Tony Blackburn playing
Aretha Franklin’s “I Say a Little
Prayer” on BBC Radio One, the
morning of my first day at
Wilberforce Primary School on
Beethoven Street in Westminster.
2. Who was or still is your mentor?
My parents, who came to England in
search of a better life. My father is a
carpenter and contributed to a lot of
north-west London’s buildings; my
mother is a housing manager.
3. How fit are you?
Zero fitness. It’s really bad. There
was a time when I was going to the
gym, playing badminton and a lot
more active. Now, apart from walks
and 30 minutes on my rowing
machine and 30 more on the bike,
it’s all about the excuses.
4. Tell me about an animal you
have loved.
I’m a cat guy and was introduced to
my ginger cat, Toby, at an early age.
He gave me a good sense of care,
even though cat duties were
handled mostly by my father.
46
5. Risk or caution, which has
defined your life more?
“Prevention is better than cure”
were among my father’s many wise
words, so caution. Though I have
failed many times to live up to this.
6. What trait do you find most
irritating in others?
The need to argue, even though
there is nothing to fight about.
7. What trait do you find most
irritating in yourself?
Everything! I’m not centred
enough, and get distracted easily.
This new medium for media self-
promotion isn’t my tempo either,
although I understand that I’m
missing out on a lot because of this.
The search for harmony or the
perfect melody, solo, chord or
rhythm is more important than
celebrity. Also, performing in front
of a live audience is an act of a
bygone age – and I’m still trying to
represent my culture through this
medium every time I play music.
8. What drives you on?
Creativity. Humanity constantly
ILLUSTRATION BY LAUREN CROW
strives to search for meaning,
especially in improvised music.
This voyage of discovery is exciting,
inspirational and spiritual. There
are times when conjuring music
creates a moment totally
unexpected and unpremeditated.
These are rare, but it’s what all the
research and practising are for, in
my opinion.
9. Do you believe in an afterlife?
No. I believe in doing the best that
we can while we are here, right now.
10. Which is more puzzling,
the existence of suffering or
its frequent absence?
Humans seem to thrive on the
existence of others’ suffering. It’s
puzzling to me as a musician, as
finding harmony through sound
brings me the most satisfaction.
11. Name your favourite river.
Yallahs River at the back of
my family’s village in Jamaica:
Saint Thomas, Blue Mountain,
Hagley Gap, to be precise. The
Blue Mountain was known for its
runaway or escaped slaves whose
heritage descends from Ghana.
Apparently one of my ancestors
built the first bridge to cross the
river. The first time I went to
Jamaica, I was nine. Being in a place
that existed so positively, and close
to nature, completely changed
my concepts of what life was and
could be. I absolutely hated Jamaica
when I first arrived, but when we
got to Hagley Gap after driving
up the Blue Mountain, feeling
the fellowship of family and close
friends, I realised the strength of
my Ghanaian heritage.
12. What would you have
done differently?
Almost everything! Putting into
practice lessons learnt, having
more faith in my cultural heritage
and having the conviction to put
this into motion through music.
Courtney Pine hosts the “Courtney
Pine Global” podcast on all usual
platforms. His new album
“Spirituality” is out now. He is on
tour from March
FT.COM/MAGAZINE DECEMBER
FT.COM/MAGAZINE 17/18 2022
MARCH 19/20