Financial Times Weekend Magazine - July 4, 2015 by Lawrence Ambrocio

july 4/5 2015

Tim Hulse, age 54 Former IT sales exec. Redundant at 49. Founded own construction company. Plans to work into his seventies

WORKING HOW LONG COULD YOUR CAREER LAST? A special report on the future of worklife. By Emma Jacobs

OLDER Rosalind Gordon, age 73 Full-time lawyer until 70. Now works part-time for outsourcing company. No retirement plans

Douglas Coupland goes beachcombing Sweet somethings: Honey & Co’s brilliant baking recipes Johnny Marr: what my 20-year-old self would think

Cover photos by Rick Pushinsky and Jason Andrew

5-11

“TWICE AS NICE, THE END, LONDON, 1999”, FROM THE SERIES “UKG” BY EWEN SPENCER

5 Simon Kuper How ‘vision’ messed up Europe 6 The Inventory Johnny Marr 8 First Person ‘I hunted down my grandfather’s paintings’ 10 Robert Shrimsley One per cent Glastonbury 10 Letters

A new exhibition of music photography opens at London’s Photographers’ Gallery, page 20

‘I started to escape regularly from school at 13. I handed in my resignation at 15’

Baking recipes from Honey & Co

Douglas Coupland goes beachcombing

p26 ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015

Working older Many of us will need to earn until we’re 70 – yet older people often struggle to get hired. Emma Jacobs on the future of worklife Sight & sound For music photographers, fans are as much the subject as performers Douglas Coupland’s Observations On beachcombing

29-46

‘When you cut through these mufﬁns, they look like little trees’

‘The most beautiful collecting experience ever: mostly floats and glass balls and a sense of deep space’

Johnny Marr: The Smiths’ guitarist in The Inventory

p34

12-28

‘One algorithm had to cope with pairs of romantically attached doctors who wanted job offers in the same city’ Tim Harford on matching by computer

p45

Food & Drink 29 Jancis Robinson Welcome to the USA 30 Five of the best All-American in New York 31 Nicholas Lander Aussie breakfast rules 32 Jacob Kenedy Use your (leftover) loaf 34 Honey & Co Five recipes for baking bliss

FOOD MAGAZINE OF 2015

Pursuits 38 FT Masterclass Hill climbing with former F1 champion Damon Hill Mind 40 Science Of mice and memories 43 The Shrink & The Sage 44 Games 45 Undercover economist In search of the perfect match 46 Gillian Tett The science prize that’s making waves Follow us on Twitter @FTMag

Simon Kuper

‘Today the European project consists of trying to digest the euro’

How ‘vision’ messed up Europe

Illustration Luis Grañena

economists as people standing in the way of history, bleating jargon. When I became FT currency columnist in 1996, Mitterrand was already dead. Lesser fathers of the euro had moved on too: even bureaucrats rarely last more than five years at the top. A new set of wonks was implementing the grand design. But most people sleepwalked into this project. Even the currency markets were bored by European monetary union. I spent the years 1996-1998 swivelling around in my office chair, having lunch with bankers and trying to fill my column. This was tricky: 1996 was perhaps the slowest year in currencies since 1973. One particularly dead day, Nick Parsons at Paribas told me: “The only thing we’re not waiting for is Godot.” My stuff usually appeared on page 33. The boredom hardly lifted when improbable countries such as Greece and Italy entered the ERM. Greece’s entry didn’t even get me on to the front page. The Greeks joined partly just to solve a short-term problem: entering the ERM helped fix the drachma’s rate against other European currencies, and thus stopped the market’s attack. Most traders scarcely noticed. They weren’t paid

to think about little Greece. They saw it as merely an amusing subplot: the Greeks had lucked into the euro and would now be ﬁne. “Greece’s economy is too small for any other country to care much about the price of the drachma,” I wrote. Nobody then imagined (or perhaps cared) that Greek entry into the euro would one day produce Europe’s biggest headache. Few in the markets in 1998 asked: “Will the euro work?” They considered that an issue for the long run, when they would all be dead or, with luck, growing wine on their own estates in Tuscany. Instead, traders asked questions like: “Will Greek ERM entry tomorrow move the Deutschmark?”

oliticians barely noticed such technicalities at all. They tended to see the euro as a political project: “building Europe”. We now know the euro did the opposite: it ended the construction of Europe that had begun in Messina in 1955. Today the European project consists of trying to digest the euro. The euro was a visionary project. The key lesson for politicians: beware of vision. The future will probably mess up your vision. Instead of taking giant irreversible leaps, be backwardlooking and evidence-based: whaat boring complex policy worked somewhe ere before? Given that Europe in 1989 was co oming off the best 40 years in its blood-soaked history, the bias should have been to leave well alo one instead of inventing a currency. “Vision” is particularly dangerous at confusing emotional moments such as the fall of the Berlin Wall. The west’s next great confusing emotional moment, the attacks of 9/11, prod duced blunders including the Iraq war, limitless spying and Guantánamo. Quite likely the fraantic weeks after Lehman Brothers’ collapse in 200 08 spawned the next generattion’s headaches. Much bette er when possible to wait out crises, as Angela Merkel tries to do. Today’s politicians take a lot of stick, but att least they don’t have any vision. 6 simon.kuper@ft.com; Twitter @K KuperSimon

Opening shot

ne gloomy February evening in 1998 I was writing the FT’s currency market report. Nothing had happened that day, and I was 150 words short. In desperation, I leafed through the pile of bank faxes buried under the fax machine. I found one from Goldman Sachs that quoted their economist Jim O’Neill savaging the humble Greek drachma. O’Neill was the god of the currency market so I stuck his pronouncements at the end of my column and went home. The lowest-paid journalist in the building didn’t stay late. Like most people in the market, I then forgot the drachma again. But, some days later, I noticed that it was under sustained attack. The Greek central bank blamed my article. The attacks continued. One Friday that March, Greece suddenly decided to join the European Exchange Rate Mechanism – the entry gate to the euro. Traders were astonished. True, recent Greek official economic stats had shown mysterious improvements but Greece still met none of the criteria for joining the currency. Regardless, in 2001 Greece joined. I sometimes imagine the headline over my obituary: “Helped get Greece into euro.” Having witnessed th he genesis of this mess, I have a sense of how Eu urope might avoid similar mistakes in future. Policy makers had be een pondering a European currency for decades. But the project only took off in 1989, in the conffusing emotional weeks after the Berlin Wall felll. Germans wanted reuniﬁcation. The Fren nch president François Mitterrand said he’d ag gree if they backed his pet project: the euro. In late 1989, writes David Marsh in The Euro, Mittterrand and West Germany’s chancellor Helmut Kohl did “the essential deal that laun nched Europe on to the Maastricht monetary union path”. The two leaders werren’t driven by economic motives. Karrl Otto Pöhl, Bundesbank president in 1989, once told the FT that Kohl understood nothiing of economics. Rather, Mittterrand and Kohl cared about history. Kohl wanted to be the chancellor of German unity; Mitte errand, to forge a French-led Europe. They saw

THE INVENTORY JOHNNY MARR

If you had a coat of arms, what would be on it? A beautiful woman, a beautiful boy and a beautiful girl, and some fella with a guitar and eight arms and a haircut.

Musician

Johnny Marr, 51, co-founded The Smiths in 1982. He has released two solo albums, The Messenger and Playland. The soundtrack he worked on with Hans Zimmer for Inception (2010) was nominated for an Oscar. What was your earliest ambition? To be a musician, playing the guitar full time, all the time. I was obsessed with learning how to be a guitar player from age seven or eight. Public school or state school? University or straight into work? State schools, very, very Catholic, ugh. You never quite shake that off. Grammar school from 11, but I started to escape reg gularly y from 13 3. I handed in my resig gnation aged 15 and the school accep pted. That was a good career mo ove. Who was or still is your mentor? I met Joe Moss, who o owned the shop nex xt 6

to the clothes shop I worked in, when I was 17. He started managing me and helped me put The Smiths together. He’s still my manager. How physically ﬁt are you? I can run a marathon when the mood takes me. It’s an alternative to the usual rock ’n’ roll blah blah. Ambition or talent: which matters more to success? Talent. Ambition alone won’t do very much. Work is the thing, and wanting to do something great. Picasso said, “Inspiration does exist, but it has to ﬁnd you working.” Have you ever taken an IQ test? Yes, a couple of times when I was a kid. I did all right, apparently. How politically y committed are you? I’m comm mitted. I don’t believe in n “centre left” Most wanted: an isolattion tank

Other home: Portland, Oregon and “centre right”. You’re left or right. I grew up left because it seemed to be about fairness and helping out those who need it more. Do you consider your carbon footprint? I consider it and do what I can. I should do more. Fair cop, guv. Do you have more than one home? I have a house in Portland, Oregon. I may go back at some point – I was tempted after the election – but I like living in the UK.

Interview Hester Lacey Johnny Marr appears at the Y Not Festival, Pikehall, Derbyshire, July 31-August 2; ynotfestivals.co.uk

ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015

GETTY IMAGES; ALAMY

‘I started to escape regularly from school at 13. I handed in my resignation at 15’

What would you like to own that you don’t currently possess? An isolation tank. It could happen. Ditching the iPhone would probably do the same job. What’s your biggest extravagance? An old Mercedes 300SL convertible. It’s funky, though. In what place are you happiest? Somewhere in the middle of an encore – volume, energy, guitar and melody – then hanging out quietly on the bus with my wife. What ambitions do you still have? More solo records with punch and drama, more movie soundtracks. I’m just doing a new Julianne Moore film. The process is the opposite of making your own records. What drives you on? Work; it gives you purpose and a lot of pleasure when you get it right. It presents challenges too, which is good for you – or can be – and it’s what you are, if you’re lucky. What is the greatest achievement of your life so far? A quite intense and decent enough life as an artist playing the guitar. What has been your greatest disappointment? Some people. But that’s life. It balances out. If your 20-year-old self could see you now, what would he think? “He’s still going and has plans to go some more. Nice one.” If you lost everything tomorrow, what would you do? Freak out a bit, then see the benefit. Do you believe in assisted suicide? If someone is 100 per cent ready and in need, then yes. Do you believe in an afterlife? Yeah, as a different consciousness. I could be wrong, it’s probably harps and wings and togas, or demons and fire. As I said, “Once a Catholic…” If you had to rate your satisfaction with your life so far, out of 10, what would you score? Nine and counting. I had audacious dreams that I’ve fulfilled and more.

FIRST PERSON ROBERT SEYFFERT ‘I hunted down my grandfather’s paintings’

Robert Seyffert in his studio in the Bronx, New York, with one of his grandfather’s portraits without a high-school education to making $68,000 during the ﬁrst year of the Great Depression. He started out as an office boy, sketching people as they came in and out. One day, his boss saw his drawings and said, “I’ll pay for you to go to art school.” Leopold attended the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he studied with William Merritt Chase. Leopold died in 1956, a few years after I was born, so we didn’t know each other. But I feel a connection to him through my own work. His son, my uncle Richard, was also a successful artist and did portraits of people such as WH Auden and Edward R Murrow, and several of those have disappeared too. I’ve been searching for the Murrow one; the last I heard, it was in Paris. Richard died young but I knew him well. He was heavily inﬂuenced by his father. You could say the brush was passed down from Leopold to Richard to myself. Like them, my work – cityscapes and portraits – is about observational painting and being expressive in terms of colour.

A few years ago, I organised an exhibition called Leopold, Richard and Robert Seyffert that travelled to galleries in New York and Washington, DC. I’m winding down my hunt for the paintings. They’re coming out of the woodwork now. The Smithsonian has digitised many but there are still 50 or so out there that I’d love to see unearthed. His portrait of Francis Ayer of NW Ayer & Son, one of the ﬁrst advertising companies in America, is sitting in a vault somewhere. The most recent Leopold work that I acquired is a portrait of Duane Van Vechten, the arts patron. I have it hanging in my studio. It’s remarkable. I love saying hello to it when I arrive in the morning and goodbye when I leave. It’s like the person is actually there. That’s what’s amazing about these things. There’s a human connection, passed down through the years from my grandfather to me. 6 As told to John O’Connor Portrait by Adrian Fussell

The Gilded Age was a period of economic growth in post-civil war America. Real wages rose by 60 per cent between 1860 and 1890 but wealth became concentrated and the poverty gap widened. The term was coined by Mark Twain in his novel of that name (1873), which satirised the era’s social problems. Twain’s title was inpired by Shakespeare’s King John (1623): “To gild reﬁned gold, to paint the lily… is wasteful and ridiculous excess.” 8

ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015

GETTY IMAGES

y grandfather, Leopold Seyffert, was one of the most famous American painters of the early 20th century. His portraits of personalities from the cultural and business elite of “the Gilded Age” of the late 1800s, and beyond – Howard Heinz, Andrew Mellon, Henry Clay Frick, Elizabeth Arden, Charles Lindbergh – made him rich. He exhibited with John Singer Sargent, boozed with Ernest Hemingway and had his paintings acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the National Portrait Gallery. But with the postwar changes in contemporary art, he fell out of style and his work was forgotten. Many of his portraits were lost or stashed away in attics. I’ve spent years now tracking them down. It began in 1999, when I stumbled across one of my grandfather’s paintings in a Hollywood antiques shop. It was a portrait of Elsie Whelan, the daughter of a Philadelphia banker, and in perfect condition. I was thrilled but it was way out of my price range. After that, I began to wake up in the middle of the night wondering where all his paintings were. Was this one hanging in someone’s hallway? Was that one stuffed in a basement or attic? As a painter myself, I see portraits as important notations to someone’s life, and I developed a lust for seeking them out. All have stories attached to them. One, a portrait of the physician Franklin P Mall, was languishing in a basement at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. A couple of others were in a storage unit in Connecticut – the owner emailed me out of the blue saying she had a bunch of Leopold’s stuff. They included two unﬁnished sketches of Howard Heinz. I’ve found others online. Because Leopold was such a good technician, his works are typically in great shape. Even if one was painted in 1904, it looks like it was painted in 2014. My grandfather led an incredible life. He went from being a German immigrant kid

Robert Shrimsley

One per cent Glastonbury

Interesting how Waterloo is referred to as “Napoleon’s defeat” and not “Wellington’s victory” (“Waterloo: above the fray”, June 27/28). The Rod Steiger ﬁlm Waterloo is very close to re-enactment. Check it out. Jimmy Gatts Via FT.com

Two hundred million Instagram users logging on every day for an average 21 minutes (“Instagram Unﬁltered”, June 27/28). I’d love to know the effects on productivity! Damo Via FT.com

The National Conversation

After years of being colonised by the wealthy, the old and the middle class, it is time for Glastonbury to take the ﬁnal leap.

Playing the role of a borderline lunatic can be very effective in establishing personal space on terrestrial public transport (Robert Shrimsley, “Move over, manspreader”, June 27/28). But you can’t displace your fellow passenger so easily on an aircraft. You might allow your leg/arm to brush against your neighbour in a suggestively familiar manner. As effective as salt on a slug. Ah, the romance of travel. tinytim Via FT.com

Illustration Lucas Varela

The hot tickets this year include the Bloomberg party at the John Peel Stage but only for those who haven’t been invited to the Google bash in the Field of Avalon. The invites were delivered by drone earlier today and the lucky recipients will be ferried up to the party in driverless cars. Obviously the mud has been a bit of downer this year – it’s completely ruined my own wellies – and I think we all realise that Glastonbury’s new demographic is looking to organisers to ensure a bit less grime. Of course, a bit of mud is essential to “keeping it real”, which is why the must-have accessories are these rather fetching pre-muddied boots, for those who don’t want to look too lofty to have yomped through a ﬁeld even though they are. There is talk of moving next year’s festival to somewhere more suitable for an event of this prestige. McKinsey have been commissioned to explore other venues and are rather keen on moving the whole festival to a mountain top in Switzerland – they say it could be Glastonbury without the mud. Another contender is Cliveden, although there are concerns about damage to the Fountain of Love, which we just know the IMF crowd will want to climb into. But the Great Hall might make a super venue, and VIP guests could use the main hotel. And after many years of chemical toilets, festival goers would surely be relieved by its ﬁrst-class facilities. Of course, they will have to turn the music down a bit but I don’t think anybody would mind that. 6 robert.shrimsley@ft.com; Twitter: @robertshrimsley

Great interview with Mark Cavendish (“Speed king”, June 20/21). If you follow pro cycling, Cav is always outside his team vehicle signing autographs and posing for pictures with fans and kids. Other sports stars could learn a lot from the way he makes time for his fans. Gilt monkey Via FT.com

magazineletters@ft.com

Hi and welcome to Glastonbury 2016 – I’m Stephen Fry and we are going to be having a simply delicious time over the next few days, watching some of the most popular music combos strutting their funky stuff out here on the farm. I’m joined as always by our panel of culture vultures. The editor of Tatler will be walking us through the big bands on display, while Clare Balding and Kirsty Wark are hosting a series of exciting debates on what Glastonbury really means. Controversy is never far away, of course. Some have objected to the huge “We Are the One Per Cent Party People” banner over the Pyramid Stage, but it is sponsored by BlackRock and we hear that it has made a major contribution to the average revenue-per-user ﬁgure for this event, so let’s not knock it. Last night we had a real treat when the rather staid traditional light show over the Pyramid Stage was replaced with a fantastic PowerPoint on maximising your Glastonbury experience. We’ve seen lots of regulars here but also some notable newcomers. Word has got around among the international elite that this is where the world’s movers and shakers are gathering to prove they still rock. If I just get the camera to pan across the vista, you can see Mario Draghi chilling out in the McKinsey Tribal Temple in a rather fetching “ECB – keeping it real” T-shirt. We caught up with him last night with Lloyd Blankfein and AC Grayling listening to Billy Joel in the Goldman Sachs Field. He’s promised to swing by later on his way to see The Chemical Brothers. We hoped to grab a word with Robert Zoellick today but he was helping Tony Hall with his tent and then got caught up discussing emergency liquidity assistance with Kate Moss and Lewis Hamilton. And while I mention it, I could use a bit of emergency liquidity assistance here – can you send out for some Twinings? You are a love. Now, one of the big highlights will be a Question Time Live with the candidates for the Labour leadership, hosted by David Dimbleby, if we can drag him away from the tattoo tent. They tried this for the ﬁrst time in 2015 and it was such a draw they are rerunning the contest this year. There is even talk of a surprise appearance by David Miliband. But we think it is just a rumour. No one’s expecting him on the Pyramid Stage till 2018 at the earliest.

I agreed with everything in Simon Kuper’s column (“Why we need German thinking”, June 20/21) until the end, when he said: “Google Translate can convert an article into serviceable English in a second, whereupon a human translator can ﬁnesse it.” Suggesting that worldclass publications such as Die Zeit should simply run their articles through Google Translate and hire a few proofreaders is insulting both to translators and to the complex German and English languages and those who speak them. Sonja Swenson Washington DC To contribute Please email magazineletters@ft.com. Include a daytime telephone number and full address (not for publication). Letters may be edited.

Issue number 621 • Online www.ft.com/magazine • Editorial inquiries 020 7873 3636 • Advertising inquiries 020 7873 3121 • FT Weekend Magazine is printed by Wyndeham Peterborough Ltd and published by The Financial Times Ltd, Number One Southwark Bridge, London SE1 9HL • © The Financial Times Ltd 2015 • No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form without the prior express permission of the publisher

Working older: a special report

This man is 54 Would you hire him? When Tim Hulse was made redundant at 49, he feared his working life was over. Four years later he now runs his own company. But his story reveals a worrying paradox: while society needs us all to work longer, older people can face huge challenges when trying to do so. Emma Jacobs reports Portraits by Rick Pushinsky and Jason Andrew

ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015

Tim Hulse

Age 54 Former career IT sales executive Currently Runs the sustainable construction company EcoVert Solutions, which he also set up

t is difficult to hear Tim Hulse. The café in the centre of Chester, northwest England, close to where he lives, is full of chattering mothers and their screechy young charges. Over the din, Hulse announces with a smile that today is his birthday. He is 54. Dressed in a black fleece and jeans, Hulse has a youthful demeanour: poised and straight-backed. He regularly runs half-marathons, claiming to do so far quicker than many 20-yearolds he knows. Later today he will celebrate with his wife and six-year-old son. “Fifty is the new 30,” he grins, aware the mantra has become a cliché. A few years ago, that notion might not have raised a smile. At the age of 49, Hulse felt he was on the scrap heap. In 2011, after a career selling software to banks, he was laid off by the company where he had worked for almost nine years. A 23-year-old graduate was put in his place, at a fraction of the price. “Overskilled” and “expensive” were reasons he was given. But to Hulse these were just polite euphemisms for “old”. “It’s a real punch in your guts,” he says. “Everything I’d done counted for nothing. It all evaporated. The biggest deal I did was $34m. I had managed a team of 50 people – you couldn’t imagine someone out of university able to do that. I thought I was more able to do my job because of my age.” When it came, redundancy was swift. “It’s still a shock – but I should have known,” he reflects. After the news was delivered, Hulse switched into autopilot. “It was about 4 o’clock. I went back to my desk, quietly put my stuff in a bag and said, ‘See you tomorrow.’” To this day he has never seen any of his former co-workers again. “Depressed” is a term that gets misused but Hulse says it was accurate in his case. “In hindsight, I was difficult to live with. My wife felt I was depressed for quite some time. You don’t see what’s going on around you, you don’t notice the weather or the view out of the window.” There was embarrassment too. “I didn’t want to show my face in London again. All of my friends were people I worked with. I didn’t have friends in Chester, I was never here.” Career underpinned his identity. He and his wife had delayed having children so that they could focus on work. “It wasn’t about the money. I like winning. I was focused on getting the sale.” The money was good though – a six-figure base salary (matched by a bonus) which gave him a nice car (a Porsche, since sold) and house. Hulse had witnessed boom-and-bust cycles before. So when the cost-cutting hit his company, he believed that at his age he was unlikely to find a comparable job. He had observed what happened to the over-fifties in his sector: they tended to tread water, picking up small jobs at small firms. But with a young son and the likelihood he will live longer than his parents, Hulse wanted stimulating work for decades. Fortunately he had a back-up plan.

Work until 70

The longevity revolution is often discussed in terms of the burden of social care and pensions, but it is also having a profound effect on working lives. People today are expected to work longer than they did a generation ago, in step with their elongated lifespans and as stretching out retirement savings becomes more difficult. Today’s ﬁfty- and sixtysomethings are at the vanguard, conﬁguring 14

How to sustain a career until 70 will become a pressing issue

careers they hope will last longer than their parents’. How to sustain a career until 70 will become a pressing issue. Yet as Hulse shows, it is not straightforward. Some employers characterise workers even in their fifties, let alone their sixties, as expensive, inflexible, out of touch, technologically illiterate and coasting to retirement. Men may feel vulnerable, having historically been prone to defining themselves by their work, but women do too. The Commission on Older Women found that this is a group that may feel doubly discriminated against on age and gender grounds, described as “older earlier”. If you lose your job after 50, it can be difficult to find a permanent position. The rules are clear – recruiters cannot demand a thirtysomething candidate. But they do not have to be explicit. They can deduce a potential hire’s age from their CV or LinkedIn profile. “Once you get past 50 it’s quite difficult to get a job,” says Malcolm Small, a senior adviser at the Institute of Directors. “[But] no employer will say that.” This is why he recommends a portfolio of contracts. Amanda Fone, of F1 recruitment, catering to the PR and marketing industries, puts it like this. “Is there discrimination? Of course there is.” The topic is “taboo”, she says. “If you’re over 50 and not a managing director you’re past it in an employer’s eyes.” Interviewers tell her that candidates have too much experience. “How can you be too experienced?” she asks, incredulous. Baroness Ros Altmann, the government’s former business champion for older workers, now pensions minister, said in a report published in March: “Age discrimination and unconscious bias remain widespread problems.” Yet this is just part of the picture. There are also solid grounds for optimism. The employment rate for 50-64-year-olds in the UK has risen from 57 per cent in 1995 to 69.4 per cent now, faster than any other age group according to the Office for National Statistics (although you are still more likely to be working if you are in your thirties or forties). This follows age discrimination legislation and the

Mick Jagger should inspire older people to ‘reboot’ their careers, says former minister Esther McVey

removal of the default retirement age. Some companies have even started to make special efforts to employ older workers. Barclays is extending its apprenticeship scheme for the long-term unemployed to the over-fifties. Others offer midcareer reviews, flexible work and training. Age discrimination is uneven. One banker told me: “The City has an age bias. You simply cannot have been a very good trader if you have not made enough money to leave by 50.” It follows therefore that “you can’t be a 50-year-old trader”. But while some industries worship the cult of youth, others are agnostic. This new generation of men and women working for longer needs new skills and attitudes. Often, the solution is to work for themselves. Data released by the ONS last year showed that self-employed workers tend to be older than employees, with 43 per cent of those self-employed being aged 50 and over, compared with 27 per cent of employees. Managerial occupations including roles within property, marketing and finance have seen the largest rise in self-employment over the past five years. For some, there are new sources of support available. Google has pledged to help first-time entrepreneurs aged over 50. But if employers are adapting to the over-fifties, they are rarely geared to the over-65s. Moreover, individuals fail to plan for elongated careers. The over-65s’ employment rate may have increased – from 5.2 per cent in 1995 to 10.4 per cent now – but “it needs to speed up”, says Rachel Saunders, director of Age at Work for Business in the Community, a non-profit group.

Hope and fear

Many fiftysomethings are optimistic about their future career development. Trevor Borthwick, 52, partner at Allen & Overy, heads up the law firm’s global corporate lending group. He believes society is changing and so are employers. “Sixty is not considered old anymore. The real question is not how old you are but how much enthusiasm you have. I’d worry more if I wasn’t putting enough into the business [than how old I am].” Some might shift into a different career or mix of work. Yet others feel vulnerable, that their work is precarious. John is an advertising executive who now travels the world on contract assignments. I talk to him by phone and email when he has downtime in various cities in Australia and Europe. John has worked on vast campaigns and overseen global events but is unable to find permanent employment. Scratch the veneer of ebullience and can-do attitude and there is anxiety: the unending, pit-of-your-stomach variety. John, who does not want to use his real name for fear of blighting his prospects, has never felt like this before. “When you speak to recruitment agencies they automatically assume you are looking for top income or director-level positions; employers are much the same,” he says. “Everyone wants to pigeonhole you.” His children have left home and he no longer seeks a six-figure salary. Titles are meaningless to him now. “It is quite depressing when you have [gained] a reputation for great work over many years to struggle to even get an interview because people assume you are a threat or want a huge wage. We are comfortable in our skin,” he says. But he does not get the chances: instead he moves from contract to contract. ▶ ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015

Tony Shiret

Age 59 Former career Retail analyst, Credit Suisse Currently works for Banco Espírito Santo de Investimento

The decision to go to court wasn’t easy. Why do it? ‘Because I didn’t want to be taken out to the back and shot, quietly’

Hiring bias

The average age of UK professionals

Engineering

Surveying

Architecture

‘I was bored. Not working felt like I was just getting ready to die’

Postal workers

Civil service

43 Law

Medicine

Journalism

36 PR 34

Primary teacher

Marketing Advertising

Rosalind Gordon Age 73 Former career Lawyer, Pitney Bowes Currently works four days a week at an outsourcing company

Sources: ARB, CIM, FDA, GMC, IPA, JaW 2012, Law Society, NUT, PRCA, RAENG, RICS, Royal Mail

When age discrimination hits the courts it can be difficult. Tony Shiret, a former star banking analyst, was once dubbed the “godfather of retail” in the City for his coverage of the sector. In 2013, he won an age discrimination case against his former employer, Credit Suisse. Chosen for redundancy in 2011, after 18 years at the bank, at the age of 55, Shiret, who earned a basic salary of £350,000 a year, was the oldest member of his team. In the ruling, the employment judge Jill Brown said that because of his age, he was seen as “having no potential, despite his excellent skills and unrivalled contacts”. Emails between his managers revealed they had discussed “kniﬁng Tony” and that he “isn’t going to be around forever”. Statistics used in the case showed that in 2011, 5 per cent of those under 30 were made redundant. For those between 30-34 it was 11 per cent; 45-49, it was 26 per cent and 37 per cent for those above 50. Only 2 per cent of employees were over 50.

Working lives

When Shiret had got laid off he was “numb and angry”, he says. The “unfairness compounded the shock. I felt disoriented”. The decision to go to court was difficult. It would have been impossible without the support of his wife and the reserve of funds he had saved over years of bonuses. Why did he do it? “Because I didn’t want to be taken out to the back and shot, quietly.” Recourse to the courts, he says, is not feasible for most people. “I was ﬁnancially secure but for lots of people it’s not an option.” Yet despite his personal experience at work, he believes the biggest problem is hiring. “There is no clear protection from discrimination in recruitment. It may be expensive and a difficult process but the law does at least try to protect you when you have been employed.” In two years, he had only one interview with a global top-tier bank. Today he is working for the Haitong Securitiesowned Banco Espírito Santo de Investimento. He does not see his age as a barrier. “There’s no reason why people can’t carry on doing the job they’ve been doing. It can be physically punishing – being in at 6.30am can be a drain – but the actual age isn’t of itself important.” His motivation, he says, is as ﬁerce as ever. “To think you don’t have the drive any more is rubbish – I know people of 30 I’d sack.”

‘Refirement’

The government wants people to extend their working lives because it can no longer afford pensions for a population that is living longer. The latest data from the ONS predict that about one in three babies born in the UK today will celebrate their 100th birthday. From 2018, the age when citizens can receive a state pension starts to rise to 66 and then to 67 from 2026. In 2013, George Osborne, chancellor of the exchequer, announced intentions to lift the state pension age at a pace that will see young people entering the workforce today not qualify until they are 70. The UK is not alone. In the US, the age at which one could draw a full state pension is already 66 and set to rise to 67. Denmark, Italy and South Korea, 16

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among others, have also opted to link increases in pension ages to changes in life expectancy. It is not simply about stemming welfare costs. Keeping older people in work may boost the economy. A report by the think-tank the International Longevity Centre-UK estimated Britain’s gross domestic product could rise by 12 per cent by 2037, assuming continued high migration, if the number of people over 65 in work continues to grow in line with the long-term trend. Consigning older workers to their sofas means the workforce loses valuable expertise. Sam Pease is the managing director at New Directions. Based in Boston, Massachusetts, it charges senior executives in their fifties and sixties up to $40,000 to assess the next phase in their working life. Most companies, he says, do not invest in training their older employees. Consequently, what happens is that they cling on to their old skills or job because no one helps them figure out an alternative. “People hinder those below them if they feel anxious about their future,” he says. “Large numbers of older workers have ambitions to improve skills and progress their career. The common perceptions are that there will be cognitive decline and they want to retire,” notes Christopher Brooks, senior policy manager at the charity AgeUK. Workplace attitudes crystallise the broader public debate. Youth unemployment is a huge concern – in the UK the unemployment rate for 16-24-year-olds is 16.1 per cent compared to the headline rate of 5.5 per cent. However, the anxiety that by encouraging older people to work the young will lose out is dismissed by economists as the “lump of labour fallacy”. There is no fixed number of jobs – the OECD has found that countries with higher workforce participation rates at older ages also have them at younger ages. Older workers are not unique to the UK: Japan has been grappling with this issue for some time. Many Japanese skirt retirement, working to their late sixties. In the US, there is the “encore career” movement, whereby people in their fifties or sixties switch to a new career, perhaps scaling back their outgoings and shifting from private to public sector in order to give something back to society. For many older people, like New York-based Rosalind Gordon, work provides a purpose and social function. The lawyer was made redundant in 2012 from Pitney Bowes, the US mail systems company. She knew it was coming. When attending an HR meeting to discuss redundancy plans, she turned to the person next to her and said, “I won’t survive this.” Nonetheless, when it came it was still a shock. “I was told by recruiters I wouldn’t get another job at my age.” She was 70. Gordon dabbled in retirement, took a few family holidays and gave her services to an advocacy group for free. But “it didn’t occupy me enough”, she says.

Slim says working lives could continue to 75 by putting employees on a three-day week Carlos Slim, telecoms billionaire

Mike Saunders

Age 77 Currently Runs Wrinklies Direct, a recruitment company for the over-fifties, which he first began working for in 2000

“They don’t take you seriously when they’re not paying you.”Then her severance pay started running out. “I was bored. Not working felt like I was just getting ready to die.” Recently, Gordon was contacted by a former colleague and hired to work four days a week at a company that provides cloudbased outsourcing for documents, on a salary lower than her previous job. She could not be happier. “I feel normal, and healthier,” she says. A growing industry of “transition” coaches are cheerleading for later-life career makeovers: no longer retirement but “reﬁrement”. Extended life expectancy challenges the traditional career arc. There was a brief debate on longer careers last year, when the Mexican telecoms billionaire Carlos Slim suggested working lives could continue to 75 by putting employees on a three-day week. The idea was endorsed by Virgin founder Richard Branson, who wrote in a blog post that the way we work will be in ﬂux “as the way we live our lives changes”. There has been a surge in older workers setting up businesses and entering self-employment. ▶

‘Older workers need to be entrepreneurial – get a company’s annual report, identify where it could improve and knock on the door’

Plan, plan, plan

Mike Saunders believes the key for older workers is not to be fixated on status and traditional jobs but to experiment and hustle. Rangy and inquisitive, the only clues to the 77-year-old’s age are the record player and Winston Churchill statuettes dotted around his east London flat. As a boy, Saunders sold nylons at the local market in his Welsh hometown, before crossing social terrain via grammar school to join the professional classes, first in the civil service and then for IBM, the tech company. In 2003, he took over Wrinklies Direct, the small recruitment company he had helped run since 2000. It found jobs for those in their fifties, sixties and seventies (although discrimination laws did not permit him to advertise it like that). The candidates were, he says, “very much a mix... you name a skill and I could find someone in my database”. He says there were broadly three types of wannabe worker: experienced senior people who had been made redundant and wanted a new role; retirees who missed work; and people who struggled to find work because they had limited skills or were minority groups. It was a small business but he believes he placed one person a week. When the financial crisis unleashed damage on the economy, few companies were hiring so he scaled back. Now he will help someone find a job or a recruit if asked but no longer solicits clients. Older workers must be entrepreneurial, he says. “They should pick up a company’s annual report, identify where that business can improve, then knock on the door and say, ‘I’ve always admired your company, you have challenges in this area and I know I can help you because this is what I’ve done in other companies.’” Lynda Gratton, professor of management at the London Business School, believes people have their head in the sand when it comes to career planning for their sixties and seventies. She is fearful for the 18

PODCAST To hear advice from the experts on how to have a longer career and to tell us what age you expect to retire, go to ft.com/olderworkers

‘I’m grateful for the shift. It’s nice to create something’ Tim Hulse

future. “Most people are in denial,” she says. “They don’t think it’s going to happen to them, that somehow they’re not going to live to 100 and their pensions are going to carry on.” Her research, with Andrew Scott, professor of economics at LBS, ﬁnds that those on good salaries who live to 100 can only retire at 80 if they save 14 per cent of their earnings throughout their working life and can live on 50 per cent of their income. Last year, Gratton surveyed her MBA students, asking them to envisage their working lives after 60. All, without exception, anticipated a “portfolio” career.This is the kind described by the management commentator Charles Handy in his 1994 book, The Empty Raincoat, as “a collection of different bits and pieces of work for different clients”. Gratton is incredulous at her students’ assumptions: “You can’t just suddenly conjure that up.” Two things have come out of her research on working into later life: the ﬁrst is that people have to be prepared to experiment. The second, they have to plan. “There’s no way in the world you can conjure up, at the age of 60, a portfolio, unless you’ve actually built one up,” she says. “People are going to have to invent themselves,” she adds, because nobody around them will do it for them.

Athill finally ‘got down to writing for the fun of it’ at 75, having spent years editing to earn money Diana Athill, editor and writer

The inventor par excellence of career models is the aforementioned Charles Handy. The son of an Irish Protestant clergyman, he worked his way up the corporate ladder at Shell, the oil company, before becoming intrigued by organisational behaviour. One Monday morning, I meet him at his home in affluent Putney, southwest London. The Second Curve, his latest book, applies to institutions and companies but also individuals planning for an extended working life. According to Handy, now 82, preparation is key to elongated careers: people need to change and start the second curve of their career before the first curve peaks (the timing of which varies from career to career). “You must have some energy and resources to retrain. And that’s very difficult, because you’re reaching the peak of the first curve when you’re quite successful. You want to go on. If [you are too] late you’re already downhill and it’s very difficult to get up again. If you want a successful third age, you need a third act. You need to plan for it.” He says his motivation has changed over the years. “You cease to be so competitive. All you can be is you. Quite often that’s very satisfying.” The U-shaped curve in happiness is welldocumented. Economists have found that there is an average midlife dip in happiness – or subjective wellbeing – in people’s early forties. Dr Hannes Schwandt of Princeton University, last year published research on “unmet expectations”. It found that while the young are optimistic, those in their forties and fifties can feel remorse before they make their peace in old age. He posits that older people have accepted their lot and adapted their expectations. Studies also show that longterm decision-making improves with age, as does coping with uncertainty.

‘Much happier’

A back-up plan is ultimately what saved Tim Hulse when he was pushed out of his IT sales job. Before redundancy, he had started to study for a masters in architecture from the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales, to while away the time in hotel rooms when travelling overseas for work. The severance package gave him the funds to start a sustainable construction company, EcoVert Solutions. “I wanted to do something meaningful. It felt like everything I had been doing was pointless.” Now in its third year, it has a turnover of just under £300,000 and employs seven people. There is no doubt in his mind that he will continue working for some time. “I’d love to see myself in my eighties sticking my nose into things. Or I could sell the company and consult.” Part of the driver of setting up a business was so that he could continue to work for decades. “The longer you work, the longer you maintain your faculties.” He pauses. “I’m grateful for the shift. I’m much happier now. It’s nice to create something. It’s made me much more aware of what really matters.” 6 Emma Jacobs is a features writer for the FT and author of the Working Lives column. To comment, please email magazineletters@ft.com ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015

getty images; ap

◀ However, a road builder is unlikely to match a desk-bound writer in occupational longevity. Diana Athill, the editor and writer, told me she carried on editing until 75 as she needed the money, then got down to “writing for the fun of it”. Esther McVey, the former Conservative employment minister, is reported as saying that the fact that Mick Jagger can still play sell-out tours should inspire older people to reboot their careers. Clearly McVey has never had a life of physical labour. Matt Flynn, the director of the centre for research into the older workforce at Newcastle University Business School, believes the traditional career path needs to be overhauled: “The idea that you can do all your education at the start of your career is no longer true, if it ever was.” Chris Ball, specialist adviser on the ageing workforce for the Shaw Trust, a not-for-proﬁt employment group, agrees. He is frustrated that well-intended champions of older workers emphasise their role as the voice of experience and risk feeding stereotypes: “The blunt truth is that employers value the hard skills more than the soft skills. We need to invest in maintaining hard skills, particularly IT, through the life of a career.” David Sinclair, the director of the International Longevity Centre-UK, notes: “We need to be careful about saying older workers are reliable. It feeds an image that they are safe and steady, when in fact people innovate across their entire lives.”

SIGHT& SOUND ▲ “Jovan Rameau, Impersonator, Hollywood, California” (2011), from the series “The Michael Jacksons” (2009) by Lorena Turner, which shows fans taking on the personae of their idols

Music photography is hard to define as a genre. These days, fans are as much the subject as the performers. An exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery in London captures the moments of artistic abandon, post-gig elation or ennui, and the sweaty, hyped-up excesses of music lovers ▲ “Twice as Nice, Ayia Napa, Cyprus” (2001), from the series “UKG” by Ewen Spencer, depicting crowds at garage nights

▲ “Erykah Badu”, from

the series “We Want More” (2008) by Daniel Cohen, who photographed artists backstage between last song and encore

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▲ “Leah Shapiro (from the

group Black Rebel Motorcycle Club)”, from the series “The Drum Thing” (2010-2013) by Deirdre O’Callaghan

▲ “Lady Gaga – Boardwalk

Hall, Atlantic City” (February 19 2011), from the series “The Disciples” by James Mollison, showing fans dressing up as their idols

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▲ From the series “STOB

EHT” (2012) by Daniel Wilton, following indie rock band The Bots on a 10-day tour of Europe

▲

“Katy Perry as Goldie the Dancer in Birthday” (2014), from a series by Ryan Enn Hughes portraying Perry in five disguises

ft.com/magazine october 9/10 2010

▲

“Lady Gaga/Dope–Artpop” (2013), from a series of portraits by Inez van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin

▲

“You and My Friends 6” (2013), from a series of close-ups of festival-goers and dance-music fans by Ryan McGinley

▲

Thom Yorke of Radiohead (2001), a publicity picture by Jason Evans

To watch a video from the exhibition, go to ft.com/musicphoto What is the best music photo you have taken? Gig photos, fan photos, portraits – post your favourite to #FTmusicphoto and we will feature the best ones on the FT’s Instagram account

“We Want More: Image Making and Music in the 21st Century” is at The Photographers’ Gallery July 17 to September 20; the photographersgallery.org.uk

Douglas Coupland’s Observations

Trashed

Some thoughts on beauty, toxicity and the largely unexplored eighth continent of the world

en years ago, a friend and I scoped out maps of the British Columbia coastline to find the best possible place to go beachcombing. We settled on a northwest-facing beach on the incredibly remote and difficult-to-access north island of Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands). The beach had a reef in front of it and would only be accessible with an inflatable at high tide. The swells in that part of the Pacific are enormous, so we’d also have to get a rare calm day. We lucked out, getting three August hours of the most beautiful collecting experience ever: mostly floats and glass balls and a sense of deep peace. The sand was also covered in bear shit, so there was a cool whiff of menace to the day. Here’s a beachcombing hint: the best place to find things is above the beach, just behind logs where the storms wash them, and then they’re stuck there.

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RACHEL TOPHAM/VANCOUVER ART GALLERY; TREVOR MILLS/VANCOUVER ART GALLERY; DOUGLAS COUPLAND

Artworks by Douglas Coupland Clockwise from facing page: “Tokyo Harbour” (2000); “Tsunami Hutch” (2014); “Hotel Room Still Life” (2015)

When we got back to the dock in Queen Charlotte City, there were some hippies who looked at all of my pickings and said, “Wow, cleaning up mother nature on your own dime. That’s really cool.” But wait, thinks I – this stuff is treasure. Which is to say, there are many ways of defining value. In 2000, I was in Tokyo in a Daiei department store and I had a similar moment of plastic beauty in the laundry detergents aisle. Japan is the land of the brightly coloured plastic bottle, and all of these bottles with their katakana labels screaming at me created a wonderful sensation in my brain – a sort of perfect halfway point between words and objects, if there can be such a thing. I immediately filled two shopping carts with one of everything and hauled it back to the hotel room, where I flushed the contents down the toilet, rinsed out the bottles and brought them home with me. As a group they go on a shelf and collectively they become an artwork titled “Tokyo Harbour”, as that’s where their contents ended up. You’re quite possibly saying, what an ecological travesty, but read on. This week I’m in New York, and last night at the CVS pharmacy I noticed that manufacturers are using all sorts of new plastics in new colours and shapes for the lids of cleaning and grooming products. I immediately bought a shopping cart full of the products and took them back to my hotel room, where, 15 years on, my decanting process was repeated. I won’t be keeping the bottles but I will be keeping the lids, stacking them in some way, making totem-like forms for a work titled “Hudson River”. Again, you’re possibly saying, what an ecological travesty, but then let me ask you this: “It’s a crime to pour

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drowning but rather from all of the contents of what people stored in their garages and under their kitchen sinks: pesticides, fertilisers and cleaning products. My seminal post-Katrina image is that of a dead oak tree covered with hundreds of shiny bead strands, like a Christmas tree of death.

‘After Katrina, plant life was wiped out by the contents of what people stored under their sinks’

this stuff down the drain on its own but if you mix some dirt or shit or grease with it and then pour it down the drain, then that’s OK?” And if I hadn’t ever asked you this question, would it have occurred to you on its own? There’s something about ecology in westernised cultures that brings out a sense of double and triple standards. In recent years, I’ve been reading up as much as I can on the Great Paciﬁc garbage patch (aka The North Paciﬁc Gyre), which is in some senses the eighth continent of the world. Yet we know almost nothing about it, and very few people have been there to document it up close. As a memento of my thinking, I took a collection of vintage globes and dripped latex paints on them over the garbage patch, creating very Pop and seemingly optimistic-looking sculptures but, as with anything to do with plastics, the shiny surface conceals toxic cargo. After Katrina hit New Orleans, much of the plant life was wiped out, not from

or the past decade, I’ve been going up to Haida Gwaii every summer for a week of beachcombing and meditation. But January is also a fascinating time to visit because the winter storms cough up wonderful natural sponge forms and, depending on which beach you go to, the storms and local geological conditions deposit thousands of miniature stone Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth sculptures on the beach – free beauty is everywhere. Two summers back, I was up there again, but something was different: Japanese tsunami debris was now reaching BC’s coast, and not just bits and pieces but debris for miles and miles. What was once contemplation became ecotourism and, with some friends, we gathered the debris into piles for later removal. But halfway through the process, I found a bottle of Japanese detergent that had made its way to me across the Paciﬁc all on its own. I had to sit on a log and digest the moment. I felt like I was on the receiving end of a cosmic fable of the 21st century – a fable that tells us nobody lives in isolation any more, a fable that warns us about the perils of assuming we all live in bubbles, a fable that wants us to study the eighth continent of the world. 6

Douglas Coupland is currently artist in residence at the Google Cultural Institute in Paris. Twitter @dougcoupland

Jancis Robinson Welcome to the USA

ndependence day weekend seems as good a time as any to examine one aspect of American independence of thought – about a certain class of wines in this case. In late 2013, on a visit to New York, I was shocked to be told by a fellow wine writer that southern hemisphere wines were out of fashion. What? All of South America? South Africa? Australia and New Zealand? I have been trying to establish whether things have changed since then. Because there has been such a strong wind of change blowing through the winelands of South Africa, Chile and Australia, I was particularly concerned about how these new wines were faring in the US. The dominant US importer of new wave Cape wines, Bartholomew Broadbent (son of Michael, the man responsible in the 1960s for re-establishing wine auctions in London), is bullish about American demand for South African wines. He describes them as “the most exciting and newsworthy part of our portfolio. People like Adi Badenhorst and Eben Sadie have hit the market at exactly the right time.” To illustrate his point, Broadbent noted that his distributor in New York, Martin Scott Wines, used to have a dress code for its sales staff – “it was always jacket and tie”. About a year and a half ago, this quartercentury-old wine distributor “decided that the sales people were forbidden from wearing coat and ties. The reason: the proﬁle of the wine buyers and most inﬂuential voices has changed. Today, hipsters are the wine buyers and they don’t give the time of day to a stuffy suit.” He adds that “Adi and Eben are the greatest and most natural hipsters in the wine business… highly intelligent, totally irreverent and truly among the best winemakers in the world right now. [They’re] lovers of the quirky and lowalcohol wines that are all the rage in the USA today.” This combination, he notes, “makes them and their wines highly desirable in today’s US wine market, especially appealing to the young somm[elier] community who speak the same language, smoke the same weed and think along the same lines.” Who would have thought that smoking habits would be so important to wine sales? Broadbent represents just one Chilean producer and reckons Chile is a tougher sell. Overtaken by Illustration Ingram Pinn

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some recommended underdogs I could recommend hundreds of exciting new wave wines from South Africa, Chile and Australia and, indeed, have done on JancisRobinson.com but here are a few favourite new wave producers. And, of course, there are hundreds of admirable established ones too. South Africa • Alheit • AA Badenhorst • Blackwater • Crystallum • David • Momento • Mullineux • Rall • Sadie Family Wines • Savage • Thorne & Daughters

Chile • Antiyal • Calyptra • Clos des Fous • De Martino • Garcia y Schwaderer • Gillmore • Koyle Australia • William Downie • Jamsheed • Luke Lambert • Ochota Barrels • Teusner • Ulithorne

the popularity of Argentine Malbec, which has been seen as a cheaper alternative to the heft and polish of a Napa Valley Cabernet, Chile has come to be associated by American wine drinkers with a handful of big companies that can offer value but not much to titillate discerning drinkers. Agustin Huneeus is ideally placed to comment on the fortunes of Chilean wine in the US. A Chilean who once ran the country’s biggest wine company Concha y Toro, he now has extensive holdings in high quality California wine and is based in San Francisco. He explains that the big Chilean companies naturally sought big distributors in the US, which has had the result of corralling Chilean wine strictly in retail rather than on restaurant wine lists. Vine Connections is a small company based in Sausalito in California’s Bay Area that has been trying to break out of this limitation. It began with Argentine wine in 1999 “when Americans were hard-pressed to find Argentina on a map and Malbec was basically unknown”, according to partner Ed Lehrman. Soon afterwards, he and his colleagues introduced top quality Japanese sake to the US market. “In 2001, Japanese sake was known only as cheap, hot, US-produced liquid served in sake bombs that resulted in more than a few hangovers. We have successfully shown that both places deserve broad recognition as producers of excellent beverages.” But, more recently, the masochists at Vine Connections have added a third string to their bow. “We started with Chile in 2013 and felt that it lay in between Argentina’s and Japan’s challenges. Many people have the idea that Chilean wine is just one thing [cheap and cheerful], because the artisan, estate, family wine industry is fairly new, and many regions in Chile weren’t even producing wine 15 years ago.” He adds there was little knowledge of specific soil types and micro climates, “something people like [soil scientist] Pedro Parra are fixing, and quickly. So Chile has the challenge of being misunderstood [like sake] and the challenge of being new [as Argentina was]. “Chile will succeed in the US with commitment, perseverance and education, three things that Vine Connections and our Chilean wineries have in spades. At the end of the day, Americans love newcomers and underdogs.” Australia’s new, lighter wines have the same problem, compounded by the fact that Australia,▶

Food&Drink Wine

‘A strong wind of change has blown through the winelands of South Africa, Chile and Australia – so how are these new wines faring in the US?’

Badenhorst Family’s 2012 Secateurs Rhône-ish red blend (£10.75 Stone, Vine & Sun, 01962 712351, or £11.95 Swig, swig. co.uk) is relatively easy to ﬁnd at independent wine merchants in both the UK and US.

◀ while selling substantial volumes at the bottom end of the market, is struggling to re-establish itself as a ﬁne wine producer in the US. Even Ronnie Sanders of Vine Street Imports in New Jersey, a specialist in the sort of new wave, hipsterish Australian wines that are the darlings of sommeliers in Melbourne and Sydney, admits: “It’s been a really rough road selling Aussie wine in the US for, I’d say, the past seven years. It’s certainly got a bit better in the past three years but it’s still really tough.” Sanders says: “There are a few brave retailers who do support us, and those that do actually sell a good amount of wine. [But] really it’s been the top echelon restaurants and the ‘farm to table’ places that have been our bread and butter.” To combat this problem, the company has been “active in the marketplace with educational seminars entitled ‘Defend Australia’ because most retailers and restaurateurs in the US are completely ignorant about Australian wine and even serious somms really have no concept of what Australia is or what it can do. Most still think that all that is made down there is overextracted and has too much alcohol. Once they see it, they get it. The US press, which still does drive retail here, really has not ﬁgured it out yet.” Tiny New Zealand, incidentally, is doing brilliantly in the US, selling almost as much by value as Spain and more than Chile. 6

Five of the best All-American in New York There’s fierce debate over where to find the Big Apple’s best pizzas, burgers, hot dogs, barbecue and cheesecake. Russell Norman picks his favourites

Cheesecake I thought I had discovered the best cheesecake at a downtown bakery called Eileen’s. Light, creamy, a little tang from the inclusion of ricotta. But then I went to Junior’s in Brooklyn. Established in 1950, Junior’s has an overlit, provincial feel but ignore the lack of cool and

tuck into the cheesecake. Left for 48 hours after coming out of the oven, the Original version has no topping. It is dense and wet at the same time but has a wonderful pungency and mouth-feel. Junior’s, 386 Flatbush Avenue, Brooklyn, juniorscheesecake.com Burgers The fight over NY’s best burger is between Keith McNally’s at Minetta Tavern and April Bloomfield’s at The Spotted Pig. For me, the latter has the edge. It’s a half-pounder made from chuck, brisket, sirloin, short rib and a secret ingredient (which I’m pretty sure is beef suet). It’s served medium rare with melted Roquefort cheese in a plump brioche bun and it comes with a mound of salty rosemary shoestring fries. The Spotted Pig, 314 W 11th St, thespottedpig.com Pizza If you’re seeking pizza and end up at John’s of Bleecker Street, Di Fara,

Motorino or Paulie Gee’s, you won’t be disappointed. My favourite, however, is Roberta’s in Bushwick. Fantastic pizza, wonderful salads, surprisingly good wine list. A recent craving was so intense that I took a taxi straight to Roberta’s after landing at JFK. Roberta’s, 261 Moore St, Brooklyn, robertaspizza.com Hot Dog Everyone goes to Katz’s Delicatessen for the salt beef sandwiches or for the pastrami. But it’s a littleknown fact that Katz’s also serves a really super all-beef hot dog. What makes it so good? Well, they leave it on the grill so that the skin gets a little charred but the inside remains moist and sweet. I like mine loaded with sauerkraut, pickles and chillies (order it “dragged through the garden”). Katz’s, 205 E Houston St, katzsdelicatessen.com Russell Norman’s latest book “Spuntino: Comfort Food (New York Style)” is published by Bloomsbury in September 2015.

Food&Drink Wine

Tasting notes on Purple Pages of JancisRobinson.com Stockists from winesearcher.com

Junior’s cheesecake

Barbecue New York’s barbecue renaissance was probably started more than 10 years ago with Danny Meyer’s Blue Smoke, still going strong. These days, there’s a new generation leading the way. Zak Pelaccio and Robbie Richter’s brilliant Fatty ’Cue in Williamsburg is a lesson in moan-inducing flavours. Fette Sau, in the same part of town, is where to head for pork belly and goat. Recently, I’ve been won over by Mighty Quinn’s Barbecue in the East Village. The queues start early but it’s worth the wait. Mighty Quinn’s, 103 2nd Ave and other locations, mightyquinnsbbq.com

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Nicholas Lander

‘The ricotta pancakes are now so popular in Japan that they have become the design for a keyring’

PETRINA TINSLAY

Granger & Co, London The restaurant business is full of buzzwords. Recent talk has been of the “elevated casual” style of restaurant – comfortable but informal – the “natural wines” favoured by young sommeliers, and the “Aussie breakfast”. The third phenomenon, in spite of its name, owes something to New Zealand too, at least when it comes to the coffee. London now has two outposts of Allpress Espresso, founded in Auckland in 1986; it roasts up to 20 tons of coffee a week in Australia and New Zealand but has transformed here into a boutique brand. Caravan, which started its coffee business in a tiny basement in Exmouth Market five years ago, is run by New Zealander Miles Kirby and roasts close to two tons a week. It was the Italians who introduced Australians to coffee; consequently, their coffee tends to be a bit darker, with overtones of chocolate and nuts. Antipodeans’ unique contribution to caffeine is the flat white, slightly stronger than a cappuccino and with the head of milk removed. Both the flavour profile and the higher milk content make this style of roasted coffee easier to enjoy with food. The other ingredients of an Aussie brekkie tend to be savoury rather than sweet – perhaps unsurprising, given the national love of Vegemite. Menus usually feature healthy foods such as avocados, coconut, juices, lots of fruit and eggs. Cooks will eschew sauces and rely instead on spicier dressings inspired by Southeast Asia. The demand worldwide for healthier ingredients has taken restaurateur-chef Bill Granger from his home in Melbourne to his third London restaurant, just opened near St Pancras and King’s Cross stations, facing on to the newly pedestrianised Battle Bridge Place. En route he ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015

Granger has opened his third London restaurant at King’s Cross. Below: buckwheat bowl, poached egg and goat’s milk keﬁr granger & co Stanley Building 7 Pancras Square London N1C 4AG; grangerandco.com

has opened a further four cafés in Tokyo, three in Sydney and one each in Seoul and Honolulu. The principles of his first café, bills in Darlinghurst, which he opened at the age of 24 in 1993, arose as a consequence of his trips to California and Tokyo and his move to Sydney. “Like everyone else,” he says, “I was impressed by the light that reflects off the harbour that seems to make everywhere in that city sparkle. I was struck by the freshness of the ingredients in California and how eating Japanese food leaves one feeling so clean.” It was more difficult to find spaces with a similar feel in London but, with a certain amount of artifice, Granger has pulled this off in his cafés in Notting Hill Gate and Clerkenwell. At the former, he has

installed bright yellow awnings over the front window to give the impression that the sun is always shining; the latter overlooks the green in front of a churchyard. “This view would not appeal to many restaurateurs,” Granger admits, “but [the green] was a crucial part of what I wanted.” His latest restaurant boasts tall windows on two sides that allow daylight to flood the room at breakfast. Capturing customers at this hour gives his staff a valuable opportunity: “Most people have five or six restaurants they return to. We have the advantage at breakfast of being able to make an impression that will turn them into regulars, the backbone of any restaurant.” The impression is made via acai and raspberry frappés, toasted coconut bread, sweetcorn fritters and bigger plates such as buckwheat with poached egg and avocado. (Popular dishes beyond breakfast include yellow fish curry with rice, parmesan chicken schnitzel, and a salad of shaved cucumber, melon, feta and coriander.) The irony of establishing his restaurants as destinations for an Aussie brekkie is not lost on Granger. He put his head in his hands as he recalled that his father still has the same basic breakfast every morning (Weetabix, toast and marmalade, coffee) and how going out for breakfast to a hotel used to be a big treat before so many of them succumbed to the dreaded breakfast buffet. Granger’s restaurants cook an extraordinary 2.8 million eggs annually (for the best scrambled eggs, he advises, add cream and cook over a high heat in a non-stick pan) while his ricotta pancakes are now so popular in Japan that they have become the design for a keyring. The Aussie brekkie is here to stay. 6 nicholas.lander@ft.com More columns at ft.com/lander

Food&Drink The restaurant insider

Aussie breakfast rules

6. Leave the soup to cool until just warm. Roughly chop the basil, then stir it in with the remaining oil. 7. Serve just warm or chill in the fridge to serve cold. It should have a gloopy consistency but if too solid can be thinned with a little more water. 8. You can garnish with grated Parmesan or Pecorino but I prefer nothing more than a touch of the fruitiest, greenest oil to ﬁnish the plate.

Prawn and courgette panzanella The classic panzanella is a salad of bread marinated in the dressing and juices of cucumbers, tomatoes, onion and basil. It is delicious but can be seen as a springboard to a wonderful world of bread salads. At Zuni Café in San Francisco, they roast a chicken in a brick oven, toss bread in the cooking juices and roast it, along with wilted spring onions, currants and pine nuts, and then toss the lot with the jointed chicken – I have been known to copy them. In winter I make the same salad with roasted beets and radicchio; in spring with asparagus, peas and basil; in summer with ﬁgs and almonds; in autumn with wild mushrooms. I normally use it to accompany a roast, whose resting juices (and some of the fat) I use to dress the bread. Here is a lighter version, perfect for a summer lunch.

The best thing since stale bread Among the pleasures of a good loaf is the chance to cook with it even when it’s past its peak – stirred into soup, roasted for salad or, tantalisingly, layered with chocolate for tiramisu with a twist. Photographs by Emli Bendixen

Food&Drink Cooking 32

years of flour contaminated and bulked with chalk and sawdust. As a result, some poor souls today have never seen a proper loaf. Great bread – that alive, organic, sumptuously hearty, comfortingly chewy, elastic toothsome thing, is going the way of the dodo. Some dietitians, those that would have us eat nothing but fat and protein, proselytise that we evolved eating seeds and flesh. We were, I retort, animals then. There is an argument that the rise of society, of human reasoning, was not purely coincidental with the advent of farmed grain crops about 10,000 years ago. For the first time, human animals had a calorie source they could store year round, and we performed a sort of transcendental migration, from an evolutionary niche where we foraged and hunted, to one where we controlled our own destiny. And so we baked bread, and we saw that it was Good. Sometimes we baked too much and it went stale but we found ways to reuse it. Some of our best recipes are nothing more than ways to use up leftovers of our simplest food. I love stale bread. 6 Jacob Kenedy is chef patron at Bocca di Lupo, London; boccadilupo.com

Pappa al pomodoro

10ml ½ ½ 1

All over Italy they make soups with stale bread – pancotto, acquacotta, ribollita and the like. This one is perhaps the simplest, and therefore likely the best. Bread and tomatoes and little else combine to make a rich, tart, zingy, soupy stew. Excellence in simplicity is hard to achieve – use the very best tomatoes, and season accurately and fully.

1 2 tbs 100ml 300ml 3

Serves four as a starter, two as a light meal 1 120ml 1kg 200g

Bread and chocolate tiramisu Good sourdough bread is simply magical with chocolate. A crust dipped into a thick, black hot chocolate or a slab of cold bitter chocolate sandwiched in a fresh, stillwarm crust are things of magic. The acidity and savouriness of the bread set light to the tartness, indulgence and fruitiness of the chocolate. Here, for fun, I’ve turned this killer combo into a sort of tiramisu. I shall doubtless come under ﬁre for this, as most Italians are as protective of their tiramisu as of their mothers. Maybe it would be safer to call it a triﬂe. Serves four

Serves four

750g

There was a time, before rabid dietitians began infecting us with the terror of gluten allergies, when bread was a wholesome thing. I suspect these dietitians, so acutely affected by the blight they are continually exposed to, will eventually become extinct and allow the rest of us to go back to eating proper nosh. Bread was once a nourishing food, the stuff of life. Begat from dust, water and mother yeast, dough would take on a life of its own and rise and grow, and make our children rise and grow with it. You’d think that less bread being eaten would lead to more becoming stale and an associated surplus of old crusts lying around. Somewhere there should be a great heap of dry loaves, perhaps near the butter mountain that ﬁlled the news in the late noughties. But it appears that fewer people eating bread means fewer crusts left over. At the same time, we are in an era of chemically leavened, chemically preserved sliced bread that is more the product of the embalmer’s art than the baker’s. This travesty was born of war – post WW2 we demanded a softer, whiter loaf. We were hungry, and hungry for something pure after

3. Back to the salad. Prepare the prawns for the oven – toss them with the courgettes and half the oil, season with salt and pepper to taste, and spread them out on a baking sheet lined with parchment. 4. Prepare the bread for the oven – toss it with the stock and the other half of the oil, season with salt and pepper and spread out on another baking sheet lined with parchment. 5. When you’re ready to eat, roast the trays – bread for 5 minutes until just starting to crisp at the edges, prawns for 3 minutes until the prawns themselves are warm and the courgettes partially cooked. 6. Toss the warm bread, prawns and courgettes in a bowl with the rocket, basil and vinegar.

200g

garlic clove, thinly sliced extra virgin olive oil, plus a little extra to serve ripe, dark-red tomatoes, chopped (skins, seeds and all) rustic white stale bread, weighed without the crusts, torn into bitesize chunks large basil leaves

5 tbs 80g 12 2 tbs

For the salad and the stock shell-on cooked Atlantic prawns For the stock extra virgin olive oil onion, cut in chunks fennel bulb, cut in chunks clove garlic, somewhat smashed bay leaf tomato purée white wine For the salad prawn stock courgettes (200g-300g in all), sliced in 3mm rounds stale bread, crusts removed and torn into bitesize chunks extra virgin olive oil rocket leaves of basil, torn red wine vinegar

Preheat your oven to maximum. 1. Peel the prawns – keep the heads and shells for the stock, the meat for the salad. 2. Make the stock a. In a pan over a high heat, fry the shells in the oil until they smell like barbecued seafood. b. Add the onion, fennel, garlic and bay; reduce heat to medium. c. Cook for 10 minutes more, until the vegetables are somewhat softened. d. Add the tomato purée and wine, boil for a minute. e. Add half a litre of water; simmer for 15-20 minutes. f. Strain, pressing down well to get every bit of goodness.

1. Fry the garlic in half the oil until it just barely starts to colour at the edges. 2. Add the tomatoes. 3. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer over a medium heat for about 40 minutes, until the oil rises to the surface. 4. Add 800ml of water to the tomatoes and bring to the boil. 5. Take the pan off the heat and quickly stir in the bread – stop as soon at it is immersed in the sauce, so as not to break it up.

ft.com/magazine april 16/17 2012

25g 40g 100g 1 50ml 1 40g 100ml 150g 250g

For the chocolate bath cocoa powder caster sugar 70 per cent bitter chocolate double espresso dark rum For the cheese cream large egg, separated caster sugar whipping cream mascarpone For the ‘tiramisu’ stale bread, weighted without the crust, torn into bitesize chunks Cocoa powder, to sprinkle

To make the chocolate bath: 1. In a smallish saucepan whisk together the cocoa and sugar with 300ml water. 2. Bring it to a full boil. 3. Stir in the chocolate. 4. Add coffee and rum. To make the cheese cream: 1. Whisk the egg white to stiff peaks. 2. Whisk the egg yolk with the sugar until very light, very ﬂuffy and very thick. 3. Whip the cream. 4. Beat the mascarpone until soft. 5. Fold the cheese into the egg yolks. 6. Fold in the cream, then the egg white. To make the “tiramisu”: 1. Soak the bread in the warm chocolate bath for 10-15 minutes, until most of the liquid is absorbed. 2. Transfer to your serving dish. 3. Top with the cheese cream and sift a generous dusting of cocoa powder on top. 4. Refrigerate overnight. 5. Serve chilled.

Food&Drink Cooking

Bread recipes Jacob Kenedy

Breakfasts Pistachio, rose and strawberry buns

Life is sweet

Buttery breakfast bread, jam-packed buns and loaves laced with sugar and spice: Sarit Packer and Itamar Srulovich, husband-and-wife team behind Honey & Co, share their baking bliss

hat does a guy do when he dreams of cakes all the time but can’t bake to save his life? If he is lucky, he marries one of the best bakers in the world – I did. It worked out well for me. Of course, it’s not the only reason I fell in love with Sarit but knowing that she can walk into the kitchen, rummage around the cupboards and conjure an amazing cake without even looking at a recipe – I admit I find that quite sexy. We met in a kitchen – where else do chefs meet? – and food has been a big thing in our relationship from the start: cooking it, sharing it with each other, with friends, in restaurants, at home. I first proposed to Sarit at a little breakfast joint in Jaffa, Tel Aviv – runny eggs in red-hot sauce, tahini and bread. She said no. I tried again: midnight sushi didn’t cut it, steak dinner – no again. Eventually, fresh seafood lunch by the beach and she agreed. When we opened our restaurant on London’s Warren Street, we never meant to bake much. We had a little bench we called the pastry section but, as it was just the two of us in the kitchen, it was a section in name only. It started small, just baking some bread to go with the mezze and a cake or two to sit on the bar in the window, propositioning passers-by, a little treat after your meal. Jams have always been a passion of ours, and we needed the pretty jars to decorate our bare walls. When we felt we needed to offer a nicer way to end the meal, we started plating desserts from the kitchen and increased our selection of cakes. Another type of bread and another, more and more cakes, morning pastries, our own cereal – our little pastry section now produces an astonishing variety, growing like a yeasted dough on a hot day. When I look at it now, I realise it was inevitable. Baking is such a huge part of our cooking DNA: me with my sweet tooth and dreams of cake, Sarit with her genius for (among other things) baking. It has become a huge part of our collective personality at Honey & Co and it punctuates our day: the display of baked goods in the morning, something sweet in the afternoon, after dinner a little sweet bite. All of us – customers, staff – are united in our love for my wife’s pastries; this new book of ours is an open invitation to spend a day with us, baking. Itamar Srulovich

Every morning, rows and rows of fresh fruit greet us as soon as we leave Warren Street tube station. The fruit-sellers are there come sun or dreadful rain, making our morning that much nicer and giving our day a colourful start, with mounds of apples, pears, persimmons and mandarins in autumn, British berries in the spring and all kinds of peaches in the summer. Even on our most rushed mornings we stop to check the produce. Sometimes we may buy a good-looking avocado. Or are surprised to see punnets of prickly pears and grab a couple to try them on a special for lunch, to see if they work well with feta (almost everything does). And if we see great strawberries for a great price, we buy all they have to make jam, depriving the late-coming commuters of their strawberries for that day. Makes eight muffin-sized buns For the basic bun dough 70g unsalted butter, diced and at room temperature 20g fresh yeast (or 1½ tsp dried yeast) 1 whole egg 30g caster sugar 80-100ml milk 300g strong white bread flour Pinch of table salt Place the butter, yeast, egg, sugar and 80ml of the milk in a large mixing bowl, then top with the flour and salt. Use the dough attachment on your mixer or your hands to bring it all together to a smooth, shiny dough, adding the remaining 20ml of milk if it looks dry. Don’t worry if you still have some flecks of butter running through the dough; they will make your final bun super-light. Once the dough has a nice texture, (after about 2-3 minutes with an electric mixer or 5-6 minutes working by hand), wrap the bowl in cling film and place in the fridge to chill for at least 2 hours. You can leave it there for up to 12 hours but not much longer or it will start to prove.

100ml 100g 1 tbs 1 tbs

For the sugar syrup water caster sugar glucose or honey rosewater

For the pistachio cream 80g pistachios 80g unsalted butter, at room temperature 80g caster sugar 1 egg 1 tbs plain flour 8 tsp strawberry jam To make the sugar syrup, heat the water, sugar and glucose/honey in a pan and stir to dissolve sugar. Bring to the boil, skim off any foam, remove from heat and reserve. Blitz the pistachios in a food processor until they resemble breadcrumbs. Add all the other pistachio cream ingredients (except the jam) and pulse until they form a paste. Butter an eight-hole muffin tin or eight individual pudding moulds. Remove the dough from the fridge and roll out on a lightly floured work surface to a rectangle of 40cm x 20cm. You may need to flip the dough once or twice to create a smooth, even rectangle, but try to work with as little flour as you can so as not to dry the dough out. With a sharp knife, cut a 2 x 4 grid into the dough so that you have eight squares of 10cm x 10cm. Lift each square into a pudding mould or cup of the muffin tin and push it all the way down. Allow the excess dough to hang over the sides. Divide the pistachio cream between the squares, then top with a teaspoon of strawberry jam. Fold the corners over lightly to cover the filling. You can freeze these if you want to, but if you are ready to bake today, preheat the oven to 200C. Allow the buns to prove in the muffin tin/moulds (30-40 minutes). You can tell they are proved when the little dough triangles on the top start poking up. Place in the centre of the oven and bake for 10 minutes, then turn them to bake evenly. Reduce oven to 180C and bake for another 10 minutes. Remove from oven. Brush generously with the sugar syrup laced with rose water and allow to cool slightly in the tin or moulds before serving.

Honey & Co, 25A Warren St, London W1T 5LZ; honeyandco.co.uk 34

ft.com/magazine June 27/28 2015

For the tops Egg wash (1 egg yolk beaten with a pinch of sugar) Sea salt to sprinkle To dip (if you like) 3 tbs tahini paste 3 tbs date molasses

Kubaneh This Yemeni breakfast bread was the pride of my grandmother’s table, and has the flavour of my fondest childhood memories – of all the family gathered for the holidays, and my grandmother’s oven producing the most heavenly smell as it opened to reveal simple aluminium pots, the contents of which would bring so much joy… and occasional anguish, as we would always squabble over the last piece. Makes a classic metal bread pot or a 20cm cake tin of the strangest bread you can imagine For the dough 60g light brown soft sugar 15g fresh yeast (or 1 heaped tsp dried yeast) 300-350ml warm water 250g strong white bread flour 250g plain white flour 1 tsp table salt

patricia niven

For shaping 3 tbs vegetable oil 100g unsalted butter (or, more traditionally, margarine) at room temperature 1 tbs honey Mix the sugar with the yeast and 200ml of the water in a small jug until the yeast is dissolved. Set aside for about 10 minutes until it starts to bubble a little. Place the flours and salt in a mixing bowl (you can use an electric mixer with a dough hook or just work by hand). Pour in the yeasted water while mixing, then slowly mix in the additional water until you have a very wet, smooth dough. Continue kneading until it has a supple and shiny texture; it gets very sticky but the wetter the better. Cover the bowl with cling film or a damp towel and set in a warm place to double

ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015

in size (about 2 hours). Alternatively, let it slow-prove overnight in the fridge for a better flavour. Once proved, it should look all bubbly and jumpy – that’s a good sign. Prepare your baking vessel. We use a traditional lidded aluminium pot but you can use any medium-sized ovenproof pan with a tight-fitting lid, or a 20cm cake tin with a solid bottom and a home-made lid of aluminium foil. Brush some butter generously over the base and sides of the tin or pan and inside the lid or foil. Now here’s the strange bit: moisten your palms with water and flip the dough about in the bowl to knock it back. Repeat three times, moistening your hands between each flip. Pour the oil on to a small tray. Divide the wet, sticky dough into seven or eight pieces and place on the tray. Pat your hands in the oil and pick up a piece of dough; stretch it a little, then place soft butter in the centre. Spread slightly, fold the dough around it and shape into a rough ball. Place in centre of tin. Repeat with the rest of the dough, placing the butter-filled balls around the central one to cover the base. The dough shouldn’t come higher than two-thirds of the way up the sides of the tin or it will overflow when baked. Once all the dough balls are in, top with remaining butter (don’t worry if there isn’t any) and drizzle with honey. Cover the pot or tin with the lid or aluminium foil and leave to prove for an hour, until the dough almost reaches the top. Preheat the oven to 220C. Place the covered tin or pan in the centre of oven and bake for 30 minutes. Turn it around so that it bakes evenly, then reduce heat to 200C and bake for a further 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 180C and bake for another 30 minutes. Turn oven off and leave bread inside for at least an hour. Keep in a warm place until you are ready to eat. This bread is great on its own but in my grandmother’s house we would have it with thick slices of butter. The best part is the darkly caramelised crust, the bit we would all fight over.

Salty-sweet orange and tahini pretzels These require a bit of dexterity. If you find them too taxing on your fingers, roll them into sticks – they’ll taste just as good. Makes eight pretzels For the dough strong white bread flour plain flour table salt icing sugar milk fresh yeast (or 4½ tsp dried yeast) Zest of 1 orange 50g date molasses or a strong dark honey (eg chestnut) 80g tahini paste 50g unsalted butter, diced and at room temperature

200g 150g ½ tsp 40g 140ml 50g

Put the flours, salt and icing sugar in a bowl and stir to combine. You can use a mixer with a dough hook attachment but it is just as easy to work this by hand. Warm the milk to blood temperature (ie when you touch it, it feels just right, not hot or cold), add the yeast, orange zest and molasses and stir to dissolve. Add the liquid to the flour and knead together to form a ball. Slowly mix in the tahini and then the butter, until everything has been incorporated into the dough. Cover the bowl and allow to rest for at least an hour at room temperature or in the fridge for up to 12 hours. Line two trays with baking parchment.Place the dough on an unfloured work surface and divide into eight pieces of about 90g each. Roll a piece into a snake about 40cm-45cm long. Take an end of the dough snake in each hand and lift towards you and off the surface a little, leaving the rest in a half-moon on the table. Twist the dough strands around each other about 4cm from the ends. Lower the dough to the table again so that the ends sit on the half-moon, with the twisted section in the centre of the pretzel. Press gently to attach the ends to the half-moon and carefully lift the pretzel. Flip it on to one of the baking sheets so that the ends of the dough are on the underside. Repeat this process with the other pieces of dough. By the eighth one, you should know exactly what you are doing (and don’t worry, as the ugly ones will taste just as nice as the pretty ones). Allow about 2cm-3cm between each pretzel – they won’t grow too much – and leave to prove for about 1½ hours. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 220C. Brush pretzels with the egg wash, then sprinkle with a little sea salt. Bake in the oven for 10-12 minutes, until they have a dark golden-brown crust. They are delicious just as they are but if you fancy, serve with a dish of tahini paste mixed with an equal amount of date molasses. ▶

Honey & Co

Elevenses

further 10 minutes. Remove from oven and pour the sugar syrup over the hot cake. You must let it cool in the tin or it will fall apart. It will be worth the wait.

Spiced cauliflower muffins

Pear, ginger and olive oil cake

Yara took over from me as head chef in a small café in Tel Aviv. I only worked with her for a few weeks before we moved to London and I was meant to be teaching her the job but in the end I picked up more than a few of her great recipes. Among them was a lovely broccoli loaf with the florets running through the centre, so that when you cut it, they looked like little trees. I’ve made several versions; this is my favourite, and I think about her whenever I make it.

Makes a 1kg loaf 2-3 pears, peeled and diced (350g) 1 tbs lemon juice Zest of 1 lemon 200g caster sugar 160ml olive oil 2 eggs 50g crystallised ginger, finely chopped 350g plain flour 1 tsp ground ginger 1 tsp bicarbonate of soda 1 tsp baking powder ½ tsp table salt

Makes six muffins 1 700ml 1 tsp 175g 40g ½ tsp 2 tsp 1 tsp ¼ tsp ¼ tsp

small head of cauliflower water table salt plain flour caster sugar baking powder ground cumin ground coriander turmeric table salt Pinch of white pepper 4 eggs 150g unsalted butter, melted For the topping (if you like) 3 tbs pumpkin seeds 3 tbs grated Pecorino or Parmesan cheese

Break the cauliflower into florets, making sure there are at least six large “trees”. Put the water and salt in a large pan and boil cauliflower until soft. It is done when a knife tip inserted into the stem penetrates without resistance. Drain and set aside. Preheat oven to 190C; butter six muffin moulds. Mix the dry batter ingredients together. Add the eggs and combine; slowly mix in the melted butter and fold until it has all been incorporated. Place a spoonful of batter in each mould and stand a floret stem-down in each. Cover with batter to fill the moulds to the top. Sprinkle on the cheese and pumpkin seeds, if using. Bake for 15 minutes. Remove from the tin and eat while still warm – they are best this way.

To garnish 1 pear, skin on and cut in wedges 1 tbs demerara sugar

Chocolate, hazelnut and cinnamon krantz loaf This base dough is very butter-rich and needs to be cold when you work it, so don’t take it out of the fridge until you are ready to fill and shape it. Fills a 1kg loaf tin For the dough 20g fresh yeast (or 2 tsp dried yeast) 330g strong white bread flour 40g caster sugar Pinch of table salt 1 whole egg 85 ml milk 90g unsalted butter, at room temperature Crumble the yeast into the flour, sugar and salt in a mixer bowl with a hook attachment and mix. (If using dried yeast, dissolve it in the milk beforehand.) Add the egg, milk and butter and combine to form a dough that comes together in a ball (about 5–6 minutes on medium speed). Cover the bowl and chill in the fridge for at least 6 hours or overnight. 100g 190g 80g 40g 1 tsp 60g

For the filling unsalted butter caster sugar dark chocolate (70 per cent) dark cocoa powder ground cinnamon roasted hazelnuts, chopped

To finish Egg wash (1 egg beaten with pinch table salt), if you like 200ml sugar syrup (see page 34)

Melt the butter in a small saucepan over a medium-low heat. Remove from heat, tip the sugar in and stir to dissolve. Add the chocolate, cocoa and cinnamon and combine. Set aside to cool a little (but don’t place it in the fridge, as it will set solid). Place the chilled dough on a lightly floured surface and roll into a rectangle about 50cm x 30cm. Spread the filling over the dough, reaching right to the corners, and sprinkle with the hazelnuts. Roll up tightly from one of the longer sides, so that you have a log about 50cm long. If the dough has softened too much for you to handle it, place it on a tray and chill in the fridge for 10 minutes. While you are waiting, butter the loaf tin; line the base and the long sides with baking parchment, making sure there is an overhang so that you can lift the baked loaf out. Cut the log in half along its length to expose layers. Place the halves with the cut sides facing upwards. Lift one halved log over the other so that they form a cross at their midpoints, with the filling layers still pointing upwards. Continue to twist the strands over each other until you have a lovely plait. Place in the lined baking tin and leave to prove until the dough is fluffy and doubled in size (about 1½ hours in a warm kitchen, up to 2 hours if it is chilly). Preheat oven to 220C. If you are using the egg wash, brush over the surface. Bake for 10 minutes; turn tin for an even bake and leave for another 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 190C and bake for a

Honey & Co The Baking Book by Sarit packer and itamar Srulovich is published by Saltyard Books, £25; saltyardbooks.co.uk

Preheat the oven to 180C. Butter a 1kg loaf tin and line the base and long sides with a sheet of baking parchment, leaving a little overhang at the sides. Mix the diced pears in a bowl with the lemon juice and zest and set aside. Put the sugar and oil in a large bowl and whisk until combined. Whisk in the eggs one at a time and keep whisking until you have a lovely thick texture. Add the pear-lemon mixture and use a spatula or wooden spoon to combine. Add remaining ingredients and fold until combined. Don’t overwork – it is OK to have a few lumps. Transfer the batter to the lined loaf tin. Top with pear wedges and demerara sugar. Bake in the centre of the oven for 40 minutes. Turn the tin for an even bake and leave for another 25 minutes, then check to see if it is done. As this is a very fruit-heavy cake, it can be hard to be sure that it is cooked through: the best way is to slide in a knife tip at the midpoint of the loaf; if there is wet batter on it when you pull it out, leave to bake for another 10 minutes – but make sure you are looking at uncooked batter and not simply moisture from the fruit. Leave to cool in the tin. This cake is best stored in the fridge and will keep for 5-6 days. Serve at room temperature. 6

The former Formula One champion puts Jeremy Taylor through his paces during a white-knuckle 300ft ascent in a McLaren supercar

Damon Hill (below left) in a bright orange McLaren supercar on the hill climb course at Goodwood, which welcomes classic and high-performance cars, including Formula One racers. Main photography Murray Ballard

FTMASTERCLASS

HILLCLIMBING …with

GETTY IMAGES; GOODWOOD

’m driving on the wrong side of the road, hurtling towards the blind summit of a hill in a 200mph supercar. Beside me in the passenger seat is Damon Hill, a former motor racing world champion. He’s suddenly gone very quiet, stamping his foot down on an imaginary brake pedal that isn’t there. This is Molecomb Corner, an infamous stretch of private tarmac on the Goodwood hill climb in West Sussex, the focal point of last month’s annual Festival of Speed. Molecomb has proved the undoing of many an accomplished racer. The McLaren I’m driving will rocket to 100mph from a standstill in just 5.7 seconds. Fortunately, it has special carbon-fibre brakes that are designed to stop us quickly. There’s a squeal from the tyres as Hill and I jolt forwards under extreme braking, then I’m around the bend and accelerating towards the next obstacle. Hill climbing is a white-knuckle ride enjoyed by enthusiasts around the world. The challenge of racing up a hill from A to B against the clock is one of motorsport’s oldest disciplines, dating from the late 1890s when the first competitions were held in France. The sport arrived in Britain in 1905 and still thrives under the Hillclimb and Sprint Association. Hill, who won the Formula One World Championship in 1996, calmly gives advice as we reach a wiggle in the road that skirts an imposing flint wall. “This wall is a test of nerve because of the overhanging trees. They blot out the daylight and you lose visibility on the approach. It feels as if you are driving straight into the wall,” he explains. There’s a more immediate problem as we clear the corner – a pair of lambs on the roadside. They’re gambolling towards the tarmac, forcing me to ease off the accelerator until I spot a line of fine wire penning them in. Hill urges me on up the track, past the wall that is scarred and scuffed from years of motorsport drama. “This is the section where drivers make up time. The road straightens out here as we reach the top of the South Downs. We’re 300ft higher than when we started and the views on the left are spectacular.” I’m more concerned about looking ahead as the McLaren screams up the 1.1-mile course like a scolded cat. This final stretch of the hill climb is normally a public road. However, safety marshals are patrolling the course, just in case stray motorists, or even the Duke of Richmond, who lives at Goodwood House, mistakenly take a wrong turn. German Nick Heidfeld set the Goodwood course record in 1999 driving a Formula One McLaren. He sped past the marker post at 170mph, with an average course speed in excess of 100mph. I don’t have the time to check my

DAMONHILL

ft.com/magazine february 12/13 2012

speedometer as we cross the finish at the top but I know it’s nowhere near that. At least Hill seems impressed. “You drove within your limits and you didn’t crash. So many people get carried away on their first run and come to grief on a corner. I stopped being competitive in a racing car when I retired from Formula One in 1999 but I still love to drive up this hill.” Hill’s shock of black hair may have turned grey but the 54-year-old still looks as fit as he did when he won the F1 championship . “I’m not sure I’d squeeze in a Formula One racing car quite as easily today. I’m definitely a little wider around the hips,” he says with a laugh. His father Graham also won the title in 1962 and 1968 – meaning Hill is the only son of a Formula One world champion to win motorsport’s biggest prize. Graham Hill died in 1975 when a plane he was piloting crashed while attempting to land in poor weather at Elstree, near London. “Although Dad was a brilliant racing driver I was more interested in motorbikes. My parents weren’t very keen on that because it was so dangerous but I was a headstrong 15-year-old. When he died, there was nobody around to stop me.” Hill worked as a motorcycle courier in London and as a labourer to fund his passion for motorcycling. “I wasn’t brought up with a silver spoon in my mouth. Dad enjoyed his fame but I understood the value of money. I knew that if I wanted to race bikes, I would have to find the funds myself.” Hill didn’t start racing cars until he was 23 and only launched his F1 career eight years later in 1991, as a test driver for Williams. He won 22 Grand Prix during his career, competing against rivals such as Ayrton Senna, Nigel Mansell and Michael Schumacher. Despite winning the title in 1996, he was dropped by Williams for the next season and ended his career with Jordan. “I had an amazing time in Formula One, so when I finished my last race it was difficult to step back and out of the limelight. I learnt to cope and be competitive at other things. I would take my chainsaw into the back garden and get rid of my frustrations by chopping up wood.” Hill says there are few similarities between hill climb racing and F1, except for the cornering dynamics of the cars. “You are competing against yourself in hill climbing. For some reason, that seems to appeal to motor racing drivers who love to come here and have a go.” The former world champion says he is much happier competing against nature these days – riding waves on a surfboard off the coast of north Devon. And, surprisingly, there are no sports cars in his Surrey garage, just an estate car and a people carrier. “My eldest son, Oliver, has Down’s syndrome, so I helped set up and run a charity for young people with learning disabilities, called halow project. I do have a lot of old motorbikes though, including a Ducati that [world champion motorcyclist] Barry Sheene gave to me.” Would he like to take up hill climb racing as a weekend sport? “Not really. I enjoy surfing and cycling. They help keep me fit. Besides, I’m much happier just admiring the views from the top of a hill these days.” 6 39

Science

Star performer:: Europe’s Noem ma telescope has fo ocused on the Eye of Medusa, a galactic maelsstrom 500 light years wide. See page 42

By Clive Cookson

neuroscience

A remarkable experiment with mice at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has provided new evidence to support the old idea that depression can be lifted by recalling happy memories. MIT neuroscientists relieved depressive symptoms in male mice by stimulating brain cells in which memories of a pleasant experience were stored. The researchers say their findings, published in the journal Nature, suggest new ways to treat depression by manipulating memory neurons; such a targeted approach might be more effective and have fewer side effects than antidepressant drugs that bathe the brain in chemicals. Susumu Tonegawa, senior author, says: “Once you identify specific sites in the memory circuit which are not functioning well or whose boosting will bring a beneficial consequence, there is a possibility of inventing new medical technology where the improvement will be targeted to the specific part of the circuit, rather than administering a drug and letting that drug function everywhere in the brain.” The study builds on research that Tonegawa and his team reported in 2012, using “optogenetics”. This new genetic-engineering technique introduces light-sensitive proteins into brain cells, which can then be activated with light flashes to turn the neurons on or off. They were able to label and reactivate clusters of mouse neurons that store specific memories, called engrams, in the hippocampus. In the team’s latest work, the male mice first consorted with females. During this period their engram cells were given optog genetic labels. Then the rodents had th heir female company withdrawn and were subjected to 10 days of sttress through close confinement. Th his produced symptoms similar to o human depression, such as giv ving up easily when faced with a diifficult

A mouse hippocampus showing a “cross section of a positive memory”. The neurons glowing red were previously active during the encoding of a happy memory and are being reactivated by light situation and failing to take pleasure in normally enjoyable activities. The MIT researchers could remove the depressive symptoms by reactivating the engrams with light pulses. Prolonged reactivation – lasting for 15 minutes twice a day for ﬁve days – led to an apparent cure for the depression; the mice behaved like their counterparts that had never been depressed, without the need for any further engram activation. This repeated memory activation

Depression may be more effectively treated by manipulating memory neurons

promoted the formation of new neurons in the hippocampus. Interestingly, allowing the mice to engage in pleasurable experiences again – spending time with females – after becoming depressed improved their symptoms less effectively than reactivating memories of previous pleasure. Commenting on the study in Nature, neuroscientists Alex Dranovsky and David Leonardo of Columbia University write: “It is tempting to speculate that nostalgia serves a similar stress-reducing purpose in humans. Perhaps an experience itself results simply in memory storage, whereas its recollection activates a neuronal network associated with reward, thereby changing behaviour.” “People who suffer from depression have those positive experiences in the brain but the brain pieces necessary to recall th hem are broken. What we’re doing, in n mice, is bypassing that circuitry and forcing it to be jump-started,” saays Steve Ramirez of MIT.

Optogenetic therapy will not be a practical proposition for depressed people in the foreseeable future, involving as it does both genetic modification and invasive surgery to direct light sources to the hippocampus within the brain. But the MIT study raises the possibility of achieving a similar effect by stimulating specific brain circuits, perhaps through a more targeted form of deepbrain stimulation, with a device that sends electrical impulses to specific parts of the brain. Deepbrain stimulation is a recognised treatment for Parkinson’s disease and has relieved symptoms of severe depression in some patients. “The problem is that deep-brain stimulation is crude and activates a large chunk of the brain,” Ramirez says. “You could imagine in the future that if you could target deep-brain stimulation not to patches of brain but to specific sets of cells that we think are holding on to a positive memory, then it offers a new therapeutic avenue.” ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015

STEVE RAMIREZ; JODIE CRANE; DREAMSTIME

Mind

Of mice and memories

Wise as owls materials science

ntists Cambridge University scien have made a coating to redu uce the noise from wind turbines, based on the wings of owls, which hunt almost silently.

The birds used a different arrangement of two whistle-like sounds when performing specific behaviours

astronomy

Mind Science

Looking into the Eye of Medusa

Europe’s latest astronomical observatory, the Noema radiotelescope, has released its ﬁrst images. They show a previously unknown region of intense star formation in the splendidly named Medusa Merger, a collision of two galaxies more than 100 million light years away. Noema (which stands for “northern extended millimetre array”) is an array of 15m collecting dishes on the Plateau de Bure in the French Alps. Seven antennas have been installed so far and 12 are planned for the completion of the €48m project in 2019. The ﬁrst observations focus on the Eye of Medusa, a maelstrom of activity about 500 light years wide at the centre of the colliding galaxies, where stars are forming fast. Clouds of dust and gas hide them from view in visible light and most other parts of the electromagnetic spectrum but they shine out in the millimetre wavelengths collected by Noema’s dishes. The Noema team succeeded in spotting this “extreme star formation” by detecting radiation from molecules such as hydrogen cyanide that previous observers had not seen. These simple chemicals are important indicators of material coalescing into new stars. The image, above, shows the Eye of Medusa as an orange spot of intense star-forming activity just below the large black hole at the centre of the merging galaxies, which is coloured green and white. “It was a great surprise to see this region brightly illuminated all of a sudden, and see it shine with the light of thousands of recently formed stars,” says Sabine Koenig, who led the team. “This region turns out to be the site of the most extreme stellar nursery in this galactic collision.”

The Noema observatory is located at Plateau de Bure in the French Alps Studies of galactic collisions and their impact on star formation are fundamental to understanding how galaxies have assembled through the 13.8-billion-year history of the universe. Noema, a European collaboration between France, Germany and Spain, is an expansion of an existing observatory on the Alpine plateau at an altitude of 2,550m. It complements the larger Alma radiotelescope, which scans the southern skies from a site 5,000m up in the Chilean Andes – and is heavily oversubscribed by would-be users, according to Roberto Neri, Noema’s scientiﬁc director. “We offer a view of the northern skies for astronomers to investigate the assembly and evolution of galaxies and the birth of stars and planets,” he says.

language

The babbler bird: not babbling but talking Spoken human language is constructed from phonemes: sound units that are individually meaningless but achieve meaning when combined. For instance, the three English phonemes “c/k”, “a” and “t” can form “cat”, “act” or “tack”. Researchers at Exeter and Zurich universities have discovered what they say is the ﬁrst non-human example of this capacity to combine meaningless acoustic elements into functionally distinct calls – appropriately, in babbler birds. Studying chestnut-crowned babblers in the Australian outback, the biologists

noticed that the birds used two whistle-like sounds of different duration and pitch – coded as A and B – in different arrangements when performing specific behaviours. AB was a flight call while BAB was a prompt call emitted when feeding chicks in the nest. When the researchers played the sounds back, the birds looked at their nests when they heard BAB and watched for incoming birds when they heard AB. The individual phonemes were acoustically identical and never used on their own. Other animals combine sounds to produce new meanings but their individual components already have a meaning. For example, some monkeys have alarm calls for specific predators, which they convert into more general disturbance calls with the addition of a suffix sound. Adult babblers have a repertoire of at least 15 discrete calls with meanings in specific contexts, at least six of which seem to be constructed of phonemes. But so far the researchers have analysed only AB and BAB in detail. The study appears in the journal Plos Biology. “We think that babbler birds may choose to rearrange sounds to code new meaning because doing so through combining two existing sounds is quicker than evolving a new sound altogether,” says co-author Andy Russell from Exeter. “Although this so-called phoneme structuring is of a very simple kind, it might help us understand how the ability to generate new meaning initially evolved in humans,” adds Simon Townsend of Zurich.

The Shrink &The Sage

A guide to modern dilemmas. By psychotherapist Antonia Macaro and philosopher Julian Baggini

The Shrink

ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015

The Sage Death. Where would we be without it? It’s not just that immortality presents many practical challenges, such as an infernally overcrowded world. The abolition of death would create existential problems, too. With inﬁnite time ahead of us, there would be little urgency in life. Why bother doing anything now when you could do it anytime? And when you reach the age at which you realise you can no longer remember 99 per cent of the things you have done, read or learnt, why do, read or learn anything again? The Czech Karel Capek dramatised this perpetual ennui in his 1922 play The Makropulos Affair, which was adapted into an opera by Janáček a few years later. Illustrations Laura Carlin

‘Living with an awareness of death doesn’t have to imply gloomily dwelling on it all the time’

The Shrink & The Sage live together in southwest England. To suggest a question, email shrinkandsage@shrinkandsage.com

Quiz answers The link was the two times table 1. “Two Little Boys” (Rolf Harris) 2. The four horsemen of the apocalypse 3. BBC 6 Music 4. Eight Lib Dem MPs 5. 10 Downing Street 6. Twelve Years a Slave 7. Louis XIV 8. June 16 (The novel is set on June 16 1904) 9. Club 18-30 10. Twenty Questions Picture quiz Victoria + Natalie Wood = Victoria Wood

Philosophers have tried to cure us of our fear of death for thousands of years. Wittgenstein famously said that “death is not an event in life: we do not live to experience death”. According to Epicurus, we shouldn’t fear death; it is a state just like the time before we were born. But sound advice doesn’t necessarily work. We may appreciate the truth in what the philosophers say but it just doesn’t sink in emotionally. Our fear of death is too fundamental to be displaced by rational thought. In a way that’s how it should be, as it seems beneﬁcial from an evolutionary point of view to fear our own destruction; without it, we probably wouldn’t still be around as a species. Thoughts of transcendence can provide comfort. If you believe in the existence of a soul that lasts, you may be less troubled by death anxiety, as the end is then not annihilation but only an end in this particular form. If we don’t have such beliefs, however, this comfort is not available to us. It seems generally agreed that coming to terms with death is an important thing to do. But what does this actually mean, if neither the rational nor the religious path works? For me, the main point is to acknowledge the reality of death in order to avoid resorting to denial, wasting our life in pursuit of things that have no real value except that they distract us from thoughts of the ultimate. Living with an awareness of death doesn’t have to imply gloomily dwelling on it all the time, or deﬁantly throwing ourselves into danger. Our job, once we are deathaware, is to appreciate life as much as possible. Immersing ourselves in nature or creative activities and cherishing the people we love are among the ways of doing this, even if equanimity about death proves to be beyond our reach.

The eponymous heroine is more than 300 years old, thanks to a life-extending elixir. But its effect is wearing off and, by the end of the play, Makropulos realises she is tired of life and decides it is better to allow nature to take its course. The lesson we would all soon learn – soon in the relative sense of, say, a few centuries – is that though we may last for ever, nothing else does. Memories fade, friends grow apart, skills atrophy. Achievements that once meant so much would, in time, mean nothing. All this is, to a certain extent, true of life as we know it. But though we can just about create a coherent narrative of a centenarian’s life, that of an immortal would be an interminable series of short stories. We think that the inevitability of death makes life meaningless, when in reality it is ﬁnitude which gives it meaning. This much, sages have known for millennia. But I’m not convinced it adds up to a strong case for being content with the human kind of mortality. Even if we accept that eternal life is too much, the one we have still seems far, far too short. The Buddhist and Stoic solution is to cultivate detachment, avoiding all the emotional ties that keep us wanting to live too much. But if you see life and people as precious, then surely the price you have to pay is regret at the thought that all these wonders will one day be gone. Certainly we have no reason to fear being dead since, as Epicurus so pithily put it, “When we are, death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.” But for me he misses the point. It’s not fear of death that makes me reluctant to receive it, it’s love of being alive. Much as we can come to accept death, it is too much to ask us to be happy about it. 6

Mind Health

Should we come to terms with death?

The former Formula One champion puts Jeremy Taylor through his paces during a white-knuckle 300ft ascent in a McLaren supercar

FTMASTERCLASS

HILLCLIMBING …with

GETTY IMAGES; GOODWOOD

DAMONHILL

ft.com/magazine february 12/13 2012

Gillian Tett

‘The Ocean Health XPrize reveals a new fashion among philanthropists’

The science prize that’s making waves

his month, the eyes of oceanographers around the world will be on New York. The reason? On July 20, Wendy Schmidt, the wife of Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, will use $2m of her family’s formidable cash pile to give the Ocean Health XPrize to a team of scientists. This largesse is not for space research, electronics, medicine or technology. Instead, the money will go to the scientists who have devised the best sensor to measure the real-time acidity of the oceans. Environmentalists are worried that rising levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere are making the oceans dangerously acidic. And since nobody has been able to monitor what is happening – because the area has been a scientiﬁc backwater – the hope is that a $2m prize will spur more investment and interest. In some senses, the project has already met its goal – at least, if I am any guide. Until last week, I had never pondered the issue of ocean acidity. But after hearing some alarming presentations on this theme at the Aspen Ideas Festival earlier this week, I now see why Schmidt and others consider it an urgent issue. There is another reason why the Ocean Health XPrize fascinates me: what it reveals about the new fashion am mong philanthropists for handiing out big scientiﬁc prizes. The idea is not a new one: wealthy people and governments have be een giving prizes for centurie es. In 1714, for example, the British government passe ed the Longitude Act, establishing a board to offer reward money for innovation in navigation – the most mo oney was won by John Harrison n, a clockmaker who inventted the marine chronometer.. But a fascinating shift has taken place in the prize-g giving game. In previous decade es, governments or philanth hropists usually bestowed money to recognise past achieveme ents, often in relation to the arrts. In 2012, McKinsey, the management consultantss, Illustration Shonagh Rae

estimated that before 1991, 97 per cent of prize money was a “recognition” award – for example, the Nobel Prizes. Today, however, four-fifths of all prize money is “incentive” or “inducement” awards. This is because many philanthropists and government agencies have started staging competitions to spur innovation in different fields, particularly science. The best known of these is the XPrize Foundation, initiated two decades ago by Peter Diamandis, the entrepreneur. The original award, the Ansari XPrize, offered $10m to the first privately financed team to put a vehicle into space. Since then, the XPrize has spread its wings into numerous different fields, including education and life sciences. Indeed, having given $30m in prize money so far, it has another $70m of competitions running, including the Google Lunar XPrize, which is offering $30m to land a privately funded robot on the moon. McKinsey estimates that if you look across the field of prize-giving around the world, “total funds available from large prizes have more than tripled over the last decade to reach $350m”, while the “total prize sector could already be worth as much as $1bn to $2bn”. The Ocean Health XPrize, in other words, is barely a drop in the prize-g giving ocean.

Is this a good thing? Not always, it might seem. As the prizes proliferate, they can sometimes overlap. The money being awarded tends – inevitably – to reﬂect the pet obsessions of philanthropists, rather than what scientists themselves would like to explore. And even the people running the prizes admit that these only work when there is a clear problem to be solved. “Prizes are not good for just general ideas,” says Paul Bunje, senior director of the Ocean Health XPrize.

unje and others believe that prizes can plug a gap in the market. Traditionally, investment in innovation has come from two areas: government and the private sector. But today, government budgets are being slashed and the corporate world is becoming lamentably short term in focus. So, the theory – or hope – is that prizes will encourage entrepreneurs to focus their energies on important areas of research that might otherwise be too risky to develop. The Ansari XPrize, for example, is believed to have initiated around $100m of private sector investment, which helped create a fledging space business. “W What we are about is warping the market, to get differen nt outcomes,” claims Bunje. He says that the XPrize Foundation tries to analyse how much mo oney is needed to create this tipping pointt in a business field (although the fou undation reckons a $30m prize is need ded to create a tipping point for space, just $2m is required to kickstart the cre eation of effective ocean sensors). Such h prizology – as I like to call it – is intriguing. In an ideal world, I still suspect that it might be better if the government were funding more of this research itself. But in n the real world, I feel delighted that so omebody – anybody – is spurring this type of investment. Either way, I susspect that in the next few years thesse prizes are likely to grow as a new gene eration of tech-savvy, ultra-rich philanthropists look for feel-good ways to usse their cash. That should give a new class of homegrown inventors, scientific researrch teams – and oceanographers – a reason to cheer. And who knows? The fissh may yet thank us too. 6 gillian.ttett@ft.com ft.com/magazine july 4/5 2015