Financial Times 03 7 2020

MARCH 7/8 2020

HowAfricanDNAcouldchangetheworldBY NEIL MUNSHI

3FT.COM/MAGAZINE MARCH 7/8 2020

Issue number 860 • Online ft.com/magazine • Editorialinquiries 020 7873 3282 • Advertising inquiries 020 78733121 • FT Weekend Magazine is printed by the WalsteadGroup in the UK and published by The Financial Times Ltd,Bracken House, 1 Friday Street, London EC4M 9BT© The Financial Times Ltd 2020 • No part of this magazinemay be reproduced in any form without the prior expresspermission of the publisher

5 SimonKuperDo less work: top tips forthe modern boss

6 InventoryJohn Macfarlane,theatre designer and artist

8 TechWorldBad tech nearly sent me tocoronavirus quarantine

10 Robert ShrimsleyFee-free, extra Gramsci:life at Tony Benn University

10 Letters

12 Unravelling theAfrican genomeAfrica’s vast, untapped genomicdata could spur a global scientificrevolution, transforming how wetreat disease. But can we do itwithout exploiting the continent?Neil Munshi reports

20 Interview:KeiraKnightleyIn her latest film, the actor plays a real-life activist who disrupted the 1970Miss World. She talks to Emma Jacobsabout #MeToo, motherhood andher own ‘feminist awakening’

24 How to be believedDina Nayeri on why we tend tothink that most Harvard BusinessSchool graduates are telling thetruth – and most refugees aren’t

28 Into the framePhotographer Rineke Dijkstratalks to Andrew Dickson about hercontemporary take on the portrait

34 Waste not…Tim Hayward on Silo, whichaims to be the world’s firstzero-waste restaurant

38 Honey&CoPeanut butter cookies

41 Jancis RobinsonArgentina: mainly excellent

42 MyAddressesChef-patron Francesco Mazzei onCosenza, Calabria

43 Nicholas LanderSingleThread, California

45 Games46 Gillian Tett

From New York nail barsto Washington

@FTMag

Cover illustration by Diana Ejaita

‘Women’s stories aren’t being toldfrom our points of view. It’s shocking’Keira Knightley, p20

ARMANDOGALLO/ZUMA/EYEVINE

‘The government’sresponse to coronavirushas turned Beijing intoa theatre of security’Tech World, p8

‘A sprinkle of salt, a goodmeasure of whitechocolate and wholepeanuts for crunch’Honey & Co’s peanut butter cookies, p38

5FT.COM/MAGAZINE MARCH 7/8 2020 ILLUSTRATION BY HARRY HAYSOM

[email protected] @KuperSimon

When doers take on strategy, their manicenergy (“change is the only constant!”) can bedisastrous. Johnson says that, especially after theChristmasholidays,bossesriskcomingbackwith“randomnewideas theyhavecomeacross, or thelatest management fad in their sector, whetherit’s ‘agile’ or ‘digital’.”

Sheexplains:“TheyreadsomethinginHarvardBusiness Review, they’re in the airport and pickup a business book, and the shiny new idea getsput into the system when it’s the last thing thesystemneeds.”

Many bosses also imagine theyhave to motivate staff. In fact,the riskofdemotivating themismuch higher. Millennials, whoconsistently say in surveys thatthey crave empowerment atwork, don’t want a 55-year-oldshouting slogans at them andsticking up laminated postersabouttheirorganisation’samaz-ing“culture”.The underlying problem

is that the boss typically thinks he’s Steve Jobs,when statistically he is much more likely to bethe maddening incompetent David Brent fromtheTVseriesTheOffice.A new boss should therefore take the tradi-

tional physician’s oath: first, do no harm. My“Don’t just do something” friend emails: “I’vemade sure there is a strategy (mostly written bymy colleagues), I solve problems between col-leagues, I represent the organisation towardsour board and sometimes externally, and I keepthings happy in the office (we’re getting ping-pong tables!). That’s about it.”When I ran his leadership philosophy by

Johnson, she partially approved, though shethinks he should be doingmore strategy. It’s truethat my friend may not go down in history as atransformative leader. On the other hand, he’sunlikely tobe a catastrophe either.Think of theworld’smost prominent boss job,

theUS presidency. GeorgeWBush spent the firstmonths of his administration taking repeatedholidaysathisTexasranch.Hewasoftencriticisedfor that – until, after the attacks of September11 2001, he rushed back to the office and threwtogether a strategy to remake the Middle East.Now, people criticise Donald Trump for playingtoomuchgolf. Iwishhe’dplaymore.

I’m at an age when some of my peers arebecoming bosses of their organisations.I’ve recently chatted to three who admitto feeling confused. When they wereunderlings, they knew what their taskswere. Butnow theywonder:what is abossmeant todoall day?Being Generation X-ers, they suffer

from imposter syndrome, are somewhatin awe of their staff and don’t want torun around shouting at them. One of myfriends has concluded: “There isn’t much

concretely that I can do in our business withoutcausingaccidents.”Henowtakeslonglunchesandsometimes goes home at 4pm. His managementmotto, which he keeps secret, is: “Don’t just dosomething – stand there!”You won’t find this motto in airport business

books. However, I suspect that many heads ofcompanies, government departments andNGOsshould adopt it too.Thetraditionalbossisadoer.He(94percentof

chiefexecutivesofFTSE100companiesaremen)has typically spenthis careergettingupearlyandhitting key performance indicators (KPIs). Hewas selectedpartly forhis stamina.The late chiefexecutive of a giant multinational company wasdistinguished (one of his friends tells me) by hisability to get drunk until 2am, then rise at 6amand – after fortifying himself with a swift tot –deliver afluentpresentationat 7am.Thedoer-bossrarely lacksego,especiallyafter

getting the top job.At7amondayone,hechargesinto theoffice, eager to get stuck in.The only problem is: what to do? Elsbeth

Johnson, author of the new book Step Up, StepBack:HowtoReallyDeliverStrategicChangeinYourOrganization, says the boss’s job is making strat-egy: “What is the purpose of our organisation?What does good look like? How do we behave –with eachother,with our customers – in order todeliver these outcomes?”She says an organisation needs a limited

number of priorities and projects. The bossshouldsettheseearlyon, thenspendyearsensur-ing theygetcarriedout. “Youhavetobepreparedtobebored,”Johnsontellsthebossesshementors.“You’ll be talking about the same strategies, notmakingnewdecisions.”Butnothinginthetypicalboss’sascenthasbeen

a preparation for strategic thinking. Few organi-sations setKPIs.Manybosses regard strategisingas something to do in their downtime, after therealworkofproducingstuffisdone. In thephraseof one banker: “Strategy is for after five.” And sothe boss starts “helping” his expert underlingswith their daily work, even though he’s probablyyears out of date, especially on the tech. He endsupwastinghis salarydoinggruntworkandstunt-ing everyone else’s career growth. Themodel forthe leader as micromanager is Jimmy Carter,who in his first months as US president person-ally reviewed staffers’ requests to use theWhiteHouse tennis courts.

‘Many bosses imagine theyhave tomotivate staff. In fact,the risk of demotivatingthem is much higher’SIMON

KUPEROPEN ING SHOT

Do lesswork:top tips for themodernboss

6 FT.COM/MAGAZINE MARCH 7/8 2020

SIM

ON

REG

AN

‘Themomentwhen all thecostumes comeon stage –it’s the purest happiness’

I NVENTORY JOHN MACFARLANE , THEATRE DES IGNER AND ART I ST

JohnMacfarlane, 71, is aninternational costumeandset designer foropera andballet.Hehasworkedwithcompanies suchas theRoyalBallet,theWelshNationalOperaand theMetropolitanOpera inNewYork. In 2019, he receivedthe scenographer’s laureate attheBenois de laDanse awards.His artwork canbe found inmuseumsacross theworld.

Whatwas your childhoodor earliest ambition?Prettywell what I do now.My dad,who passed awaywhen Iwas aboutseven, was a painter and architect,and helpedmemake tiny theatresout of emptywoodenmatchboxes,withminiature curtains and drops.Private school or state school?University or straight intowork?State:HillheadHigh School inGlasgow.My education, andmy life,started at GlasgowSchool of Art.

I won aLeverhulme travellingscholarship,went to Italy, then gotanArts Council bursary. And thenaHamburg Shakespeare Prize –thewinner could pass on a smallerprize to someonewhowas up-and-coming, and [theatre andfilmdirector] Peter Brookpassed his tome. It led tomyfirst ballet designandfirst exhibition – the pointwhere everything really started.Whowasor still is yourmentor?Robert Stewart at the GlasgowSchool of Art. I specialised intextile design because of him.He taughtme that you canmovebetween disciplines – a hugelesson. On opening nights, I think:“I wish Bob could see this.”Howphysicallyfit are you?Reasonably.My stamina isvery good.Ambitionor talent:whichmattersmore to success?Talent –with the discipline to use it.Luck also plays a huge part.

Howpolitically committedare you?I used to be. Sadly, I’ve becomemore cynical, and depressed bythe corrupt, self-serving, dishonestbehaviour of politicians.Whatwouldyou like toown thatyoudon’t currentlypossess?I own a very beautiful Yamahagrandpiano but can’t shake thedesire to ownahand-built Steinway.What’s yourbiggest extravagance?Business-class travel. But that hasbecome an essential.My downfallis beautiful watches and beautifulleather bags and luggage.Inwhatplace are youhappiest?Inmy studio at home in the BlackMountains. Also,when you’veworked on a production,which canbe for over two years, themomentwhen all the costumes comeonstage, it’s lit, you see it all togetherfor the first time – it’s the puresthappiness. It’s like a huge,movingpainting. I have endedup in tears.

What ambitionsdoyou still have?To be free of the ScottishPresbyterian need to always beworking. I’d like to learn to be calmand not always have a schedule.Whatdrives youon?The belief that somewhere roundthe corner is the perfect drawing.What is the greatest achievementof your life so far?Still being here – being able andallowed to dowhat I love. Sharingmy lifewith a loving partner.Whatdoyoufindmost irritatinginotherpeople?Loud voices and behaviour inpublic spaces.If your 20-year-old self could seeyounow,whatwouldhe think?Hewould be pretty happy. I waspassionate about opera andballet.I fantasised aboutworking inCoventGarden,Vienna, SanFrancisco – andthis iswhat I do.He’d be evenmorepleased that I live in the country.When Iwas a child, visitingAuntiePeg onher farm inPerthshirewaslike going to heaven. Iwould cry allthewayback toGlasgow. Thoughhewould be quite shockedwith theravages of howyou look at 71.Whichobject that you’ve lost doyouwishyou still had?If it were a person rather thanobject, this answerwould be a verylong one. I can’t think of any objectthat couldn’t simply be replaced.What is the greatest challengeof our time?Climate change. Not just trying totackle it, but also persuading allcountries that it applies to them.Doyoubelieve in anafterlife?No, I’ll happily go back to the earth.If youhad to rate your satisfactionwithyour life so far, out of 10,whatwouldyou score?Nine and a half. There’s no suchthing as a perfect score.

Interview byHester Lacey.JohnMacfarlane designed the set andcostumes for “Tosca” (April 11) and“Maria Stuarda” (May 9), which willbe broadcast internationally fromTheMet: Live inHD;metopera.org

ILLUSTRATION BY PÂTÉ


Your temperature isabnormal.We’ll have to sendyou to the hospital,” said theguard standing at the gate

tomyBeijing compound. It was afrosty Saturdaymorning and I hadcomeback fromwalkingmydog.Hehad tried to takemy temperaturewith his infrared thermometer, thestandard device used across Chinanow to test people for signs of fever,a possible symptomof coronavirus.These sensors were popular

because theywere fast and didn’trequire physical contact: you couldhold theman inch from someone’sforehead orwrist. They alsofrequentlymalfunctioned. This onewas showing three dashes on itsdisplay,my zombie temperature.I laughed awkwardly.Was the

softly-spoken, elderly guardwho

often inquired aboutmy love lifeand complimentedmydog reallygoing to shipmeoff to quarantine?I took a step into the compound.Hemoved to blockmypath. “No,wehave to resolve this. Your reading isabnormal. You can’t go in.”While it is still too common

to be detained or threatened byauthorities while reporting inChina, I was not willing to let ithappen for the sake of a faultythermometer. I bargainedwith theguard and eventually he letme intomyflat after I promised tomeasuremyself the old-fashionedway, withamercury thermometer. (I amneither feverish nor dead.)When I spoke to a salesperson

for the infrared thermometers– in this instance fromXiaomi,the Chinese tech giant that roseto profit on the back of itscheap but slick smartphones andsmart home appliances – theytoldme that the thermometersdon’t work properly belowtemperatures of 10C. In Beijing’s

below-freezing winter, thatmadethemuseless outdoors.The problem is not just the

technology but itsmisapplication.The government’s response to thecoronavirus epidemic has turnedBeijing into a theatre of security.In the sameway that complicatedluggage scans at airports are toreassure passengers asmuch as toactually catchwould-be hijackers,China’s display of gadgets and tech“solutions” is designed to show thatauthorities, and tech companies, areat least doing something.But doing something can

beworse than doing nothing.Security as theatre gives falseconfidence. At several checkpoints,I had a guard try and fail to takemy temperature, then simplywritedown a fake one. The list of visitorsprecedingme all happened to havetemperatures of 36.5C. President Xihas instructed officials to do theirutmost to prevent contagion andshownhe is willing to fire high-ranking oneswho fail. In response,

Bad tech nearly sentme to coronavirusquarantine

local officials create paper trails,and outsource their decision-making to unreliable instruments:if they stick to a bad process,theywon’t be blamed.False positives abound. The state

telecoms carriers, which ownthe location data of hundreds ofmillions of subscribers, are nowproviding userswith records ofwhere they’ve been. This can beused to showauthorities youhavenot left your city and, specifically,not been toHubei, the province atthe heart of the outbreak. Somesubscriberswere surprised to findthey had visited dozens of cities inone day, according to their locationhistory. It turns out they had takena train journey and their phonehadchecked inwith all the cell towerson theway. Thiswould incorrectlyclassify themas having visitedcoronavirus hotspots.

Human rights are at risk too.Since the government instructedlocal authorities to “take in thosewhoneed taking in”, health agencieshave been exercising theirquarantine powers. Videos ofpeople being dragged from theirhomes by their armpits suggestsome citizens disagree that theyfall into that category.My friendsin Beijing say they aremost afraidof catching seasonal flu or someother common illness, then beingquarantined innon-segregated feverwardswith coronavirus carriers.Some epidemiologists argue that

containment is now impossible.They say the virus is so contagious,and there are somany carriersshowing no symptoms, that itwill inevitably become endemic– that is, always present in thepopulation. If that is the case,then no amount of data-drivensurveillance by the Chinese statewill work, despite its attempt toplay to its strengths in carrying itout. Only vaccines, well-fundedhospitals and test kits can help.

TECH WORLDNOTES FROM A DIGITAL BUNKERBY YUAN YANG IN BEIJING

‘The government’sresponse to the epidemichas turned Beijing intoa theatre of security’

Yuan Yang is the FT’s Chinatech correspondent in Beijing


Reply

Fee-free,Gramsci-heavy: life at TBU

To contributePlease email [email protected]. Includea daytime telephone number and full address(not for publication). Letters may be edited.

ILLUSTRATION BY LUCAS VARELA

ROBERT SHRIMSLEYTHE NATIONAL CONVERSATION

Iwas hugely excited to hear lastweek of the plan for a Tony BennUniversity of Political Education.The scheme is the brainchild – Iknow one hesitates to use that wordin this instance – of Richard Burgon,a soon-to-be-defeated candidate forLabour’s deputy leadership.I doubt he actually believes in

the idea but he hopes it will helphim corner the envious position ofmoral heir to JeremyCorbyn, onceRebecca Long Bailey has lost theLabour leadership contest.Burgon is approaching that

taskwith a splendidly cynicaldemeanour. It basically seems toinvolve coming upwith themostleftwing ideas imaginable and thenpromising to implement them ifelected. This is not as easy as youmight think. Several of themostpromisingwacky notionswere inthe last Labourmanifesto. It wouldbe very easy to take awrong step,such as insisting all footballmatches end in a draw or offeringfree broadband to all voters.But Burgon argues that the party

and the nationwill benefit from thisnew centre of political excellence– although, obviously, excellence isa bit elitist, so it ought by rights tobemore of a centre of averagenessandmediocrity. Naming the collegeafter Benn is a nice touch, thoughif things gowell for the next Labourleader, hemay feel a Keir StarmerCollege ismore appropriate.It is easy tomock the Tony Benn

University – at least I hope it is, I’vegot 700words to fill here – but TBUcould be exciting and intellectuallystimulating. (Incidentally, one ofthe great stories about Benn iswhen he told his fellow LabourMPTony Crosland that they needed tolose the stigma of intellectualism,and Crosland replied: “You’d bettergain it first.”)There are big questions raised

by the plan.Will the Tony BennUniversity have a RagWeek?Whatwill its attitude be to student

sit-ins?Will the lecturers bepunished or promoted for goingon strike?Will there ever be anydays not lost to industrial action?In fact, will turning up for lectureslead tomarks being deducted?It is worth contemplating life

on TBU’s pithead campus. For onething, it would obviously be free –Tonywould not havewantedtuition fees charged – so it willbe open to students of allmeansand none. This alreadymakes itsignificantlymore attractive thanquite a lot of the alternatives thatcharge fees and aren’t named afterTony Benn: the James Chuter EdeUniversity of HomeAffairs, theStafford Cripps College of FinancialEngineering and the Tony BlairCollege of Just Gimme theMoney.Then again, perhaps it will be

reversemeans-tested so that onlythewealthy pay, the problemherebeing that theymight then decideto go to a – oh, what’s theword? –serious university instead.The universitywill offer awide

range of courses, including a veryhealthy dose ofMarxist dialectic,Gramscian critique, howLabourwon the argument at the lastelection and absolutely oodles ofcourses on the Latin-Americanmodel, whichwould also attractpublic schoolboyswhowere goodat classics andmisread the title.

Obviously, therewill be a lot ofcontemporary history: themythof the Soviet purges; war crimesfromKennedy to Blair; and theTory government, 1979-2010.Therewill be sidemodules in

howwewould havewon if it wasn’tfor themedia; howwewould havewon if it wasn’t for Blairites; howwewould havewon if it wasn’t forthewarmongers; and howwewouldhavewon if it wasn’t for the Jews,sorry Zionists. And therewill beample extra-curricular activities,including a very healthy dose ofMarxist dialectic, Gramsciancritique and howLabourwon theargument at the last election.It is early days, and verymuch

in the conceptual stage, but, sadly,theremay not be any competitivesport – though theremay be roomfor five-a-side Gramscian critiqueand aqua-Marxist dialectic.Given the commitment to

lifelong education, a degree fromTBUmay be just the start. Afterthe Tony BennUniversity forPolitical Education could perhapscome the JeremyCorbyn Collegefor Political Re-education. I’msurprised Burgon hasn’t thoughtof this already. Perhaps he’ssaving it for the final run-in.

Re “Why penguinsmay helpus predict the impact of climatechange” (February 29/March 1):a superb piece of reporting onan issue and a region that lies atthe heart of what itmeans to bea human on this planet.LiuXiaobo via FT.com

I admire the humanismofAnne Case andAngus Deaton’sresearch (“America’s ‘deaths ofdespair’ and how to tackle them”,February 29/March 1), and I alsocommend Joshua Chaffin for hisexcellent reporting. Pieces likethis are a bridge to empathy.These peoplewent from somethingto little to nothing. Theywerebasically purged, bearing the bruntof changes in the value/supplychain – their jobs were traded.Ephialtes via FT.com

Further to Gillian Tett’s column,“An all-American approach tolegalisingmarijuana” (February29/March 1). It’s time. But theright way to go about this is tolegalisemarijuana at a federallevel and then let individual statesdecide how theywant to regulateand tax usage for themselves.It will happen.GoodEuropean via FT.com

The article byOlivia Laing shinesbeautiful light onAndyWarhol(February 29/March 1). As a17-year-old, I encounteredWarholin aweek-long art happening inFinland. I quit school for theweekto cover it as a press person. It washis four- and five-hour films inparticular that knockedme out.Warhol has revealed somany otherunexpected facets each time oneencounters art produced by hiscuriousmind.TapaniTalo –Architect via FT.com

[email protected]@robertshrimsley

Tomark InternationalWomen’sDay, we speak to LauraBates, EmmaDabiriandEmilie Pine about feminismnow. Listen to the conversation in the latestCulture Call, the FT’s transatlantic culture podcast; ft.com/culture-call

@KeithNHumphreys February 28Excellent profile via @FTilluminates that economistAnne Case is exceptional notonly in her intelligence butalso in her compassion

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12 FT.COM/MAGAZINE MARCH 7/8 2020 13FT.COM/MAGAZINE MARCH 7/8 2020

HowAfricanDNAcouldchangetheworldThe continent’s untapped genomicdata could spur a scientificrevolution, transforming howwetreat disease.Why havewe ignoredit for so long?Neil Munshi reports.Illustration byDiana Ejaita

M ore than 7,000 yearsago, during thelast Green Saharaperiod, when thevast north Africandesert was rain-fedand lush, a child wasborn with extraordi-

nary powers – and the seed of a curse.Locked inside the child was a genetic muta-

tion that gave a heightened immunity to malaria.Over the following 259 generations, the diseasewould become the deadliest in human history.IndianscribesoftheVedicperiodcalledit“thekingof diseases”.MalariahastenedRome’s fall. It killedup to 300million people in the 20th century alone– one in every20deaths.Thechildsurvivedbecauseofachangeinhaemo-

globin, themolecule in red blood cells that carriesoxygen, which was then passed on to its descend-ants. The mutation persisted because it was ameans of survival inmalarial sub-Saharan Africa.But its potency held a dark secret. Sometimes,when two of those descendants procreated, their▶


◀ children inherited twomutated genes, and theirred blood cells collapsed into crescents, cloggingtheir blood vessels. The result is what we now callsickle cell anaemia – a painful, sometimes deadlygenetic disorder that afflicts 300,000 babies everyyear,mostly inAfrica.The link between sickle cell and malaria was

establishedinthe1950sandhadaprofoundimpacton the field of humanmolecular genetics. But theexistence of the child – which may be crucial infinding a cure – was not discovered until 2018, byCharlesRotimi andhis colleagueDaniel Shriner attheUSNational Institutes ofHealth.The mapping of the entire human genome –

a 13-year effort to list all of the roughly 3 billion“letters” thatmake up a person’s DNA –was com-pleted in 2003. Since then, the reference genomethat scientists use to conduct their research hassteadily grown, adding different types of peopleto further our understanding of the fundamen-tal building blocks of human life. But it remainsincomplete: nearly 20 years on, the vast major-ity of it is still European. Genetic material frompeopleofAfricandescentmakesupjust2percent.It was this small portion that produced Rotimi’sgroundbreaking research.The lackofAfricangeneticmaterial constitutes

a significant obstacle to understanding how ourbodies and diseases function. African genomesare not only humanity’s oldest but our mostdiverse, and that diversity holds within it analmost unfathomable potential – from scientificbreakthroughs to gene editing to the rewritingof our evolutionary history, the very story we tellourselves about ourselves.“ThecontinentofAfricarepresentswhatIwould

like to call the root and trunk of human evolution-ary history,” Rotimi tells me over the phone fromMaryland,whereheisthedirectoroftheCenterforResearch on Genomics and Global Health at NIH.“We have lived the longest as humans on the Afri-can continent, and that has very, very importantimplications for understanding… how forces thatexistedonthecontinenthelpedshapepresent-dayhuman genomes, either in terms of how to surviveinfectiousdiseases or survive the environment.”Researchers, academics, drug companies and

start-ups around the world have recently wokenup to thepotential thatAfrica offers.A consortiumof roughly 500 African scientists is conductinggroundbreaking research on the genetic causes ofblindness, Alzheimer’s, cancer, kidney disease andotherafflictionsundertheumbrellaoftheH3Africaprogramme – an initiative created by Rotimi, andfundedbytheNIHandtheUK’sWellcomeTrust, in2012. Their work, Rotimi says, is just beginning tobear fruit. Meanwhile, pharmaceutical groups areon thehunt for genomicdata fromAfricanpopula-tions– in somecasesprovidedbynewhome-grownbiotech start-ups – as they seek to develop thenextgenerationofblockbuster gene-based therapies.There is, however, concern about who will ulti-

matelyownAfrica’sgenomicdata.AUSofficial toldthe FT last month that the Trump administrationwanted to block China’s plans to build an $80mheadquarters for the Africa Centres for DiseaseControl and Prevention, in large part because ofAfrica’s “vast amounts of genomic data”. “The Chi-nese…wanttoeventuallysteal thedata,”theofficialsaid (Beijingcalled theallegation“ridiculous”).As the commercial possibilities become clear,

and private companies from the US, Europe and

China take an interest, scientists in Africa aregrapplingwith the complexethical implications ofpractisinganextractivescienceonacontinentwitha longhistory of exploitation fromabroad.Roughly99per cent of our evolutionaryhistory

occurredinAfrica.Modernhumansemergedthere200,000 years ago. About 100,000 years later,small groups of our collective ancestors begana procreational march around the world. Theytookwith them just a fraction of our genetic diver-sity. Those in Africa held the vastmajority, and asthey intermarried and reproduced, that diversityremained, buffeted and transformed by environ-mental pressures including disease. Tapping intothat diversityhas implications for all of humanity.

Not long ago, a tailor came tomyhome inLagosto takemymeasurements. I asked him if he couldalso make dresses for my daughters. He said heknew someone who could, his ex-business part-ner.Actually,hesaid, shewasalsohisex.Ah, I said,it’salwayshardtomixbusinessandlove.No,no, it’snot that, he said.We’rebothAS.Inside each human cell is a nucleus with about

20,000 genesmadeupof strands ofDNA that con-tain four chemicals called nucleotides, or bases.Theentirehumangenome–which includes all of aperson’s genes – contains 3.2 billion pairs of thosebases – lettered A, C, T and G – which provide theblueprint forhowour cells function.Two copies of the haemoglobin gene sit in each

of those cells. For some Africans, one of them isnormal (A) and one of them ismutated (S). Theycarry the sickle cell trait but don’t suffer from thedisease. Roughly a quarter of Nigerians are AS;the country accounts for half of the babies bornwith the disease each year. When things betweenthe tailor and his girlfriend got serious, they – likemost youngNigerians – took a genetic test.Hewasunlucky, as many others across Africa and in thediaspora are, to have fallen in love with anotherdescendant of the child born in the Green Sahara,hundreds of generationsdown the line.Genomic research is the search for variation.

Humans share roughly 99.9 per cent of their DNAbut it is the difference in what remains that isimportant. These mutations are known as SNPs,or single-nucleotide polymorphisms – the equiva-lentofasingletypoinallof thewords inathousandbibles. Most are benign, causing blue eyes or bigears or nothing at all. The ones scientists seek aremore dangerous – causing cancer, Alzheimer’s,high cholesterol, Parkinson’s – and more heroic,protectingus fromsuchafflictions.Without including the genetic data of Africans,

precision medicine, gene editing and otherscientific advances risk becoming the provinceof the white and wealthy. Many genetic tests arealready better at predicting breast cancer andtype-1 diabetes in patients of European descentthan clinicalmethods, because the tests are basedonthem.Thisbias is“themostcritical limitationtogenetics inprecisionmedicine”,accordingtoa2019paper in the journalNatureGenetics.Broadening genetic researchwill benefit every-

one. Years ago, Dr Olufunmilayo Olopade, one ofAmerica’s leadingcancerresearchers,begannotic-ing higher rates of breast cancer, at earlier ages, ▶

OMANSE

THAHOUANSO

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‘Ithinkit’smoreacceptabletotheAfricanpopulationiftheyseetheirpeersdoingtheresearch,ratherthanseeingpeoplefromoutside.Thatcanremindpeopleoftheolddays,ofpeoplecominginandtakingtheresourcesandgoingout’GuidaLandouré,Bamako,Mali


◀ in women in her native Nigeria. In 2018, she co-authored the first-ever study to use sophisticatedgenomics analysis of African women. The resultscould change the way we think about how breastcancer develops and how it should be screened for– regardless ofwhereyou come from.“For a very long time, we have thought that

cancerwent through a systematic, slow growth, soyou wait until 50 and you get your mammogramonce every two years and you’re going to be OK,”says Olopade, a MacArthur genius grantee anddirector of the Center for Clinical Cancer Geneticsand Global Health at the University of Chicago.“I think this really has just turned that on its head,because you may need to start earlier... And itshowsthatweneedtodomoregenetics research inAfrica, because otherwise we will have the wrongpolicies, we will start in the wrong place, andthat’swhywehavenothad thekindof progressweneeded tohave.”Advances in sequencing mean finding muta-

tions is increasingly easy.Determiningwhich onesmatterisfarmoredifficult.Researchershavefoundthat including even a few black people in stud-ies can improve results. But most analysis is stilldone on European-ancestry populations, becausethey are themost common in scientific literature.WithoutrobustdatafromAfricanpopulations,sci-entists aremissing out on the secrets of thousandsof generations of humanevolution.A recent study of just 910 people of African

descent revealed that 300million base pairs – outof more than 3 billion – are not found in the refer-ence genome. “That’s massive. That means thatpotentiallyyouhave10percentoftheareathatyoujust don’t know… and that completely harms ourcapacity as scientists to do good science,” says DrAmbroiseWonkam,associateprofessor in thedivi-sion of human genetics at the University of CapeTown, who is studying the longevity of sickle cellpatients. “So whenwe say equity in science now isimportant,specificallywiththeAfricanpopulation,it’s not about charity… It’s something that is abso-lutely necessary for us to do the science the way itshouldbedone.Otherwise,weall lose.”

P oint GHospital is a dusty com-plexoflow-slungbuildingsonasandstonebluffaboveBamako.Down below, the Niger riverwinds through Mali’s sleepy,sandblasted capital. I meet DrGuida Landouré, anH3Africa-fundedresearcher, inthefaded

baby-blueneurologybuildingwherehis office is litbyfluorescent bulbs and themiddaySahelian sun.His white coat hangs from the curtain rod. Stacksof bursting Manila folders are piled half-a-metrehigh around his small laptop. He grins wanly ashe unfolds his gangly frame to greetme,moving ahand towel in abashful effort at cleaningup.Landouré was born in central Mali, the last of

28 children to a Koranic schoolteacher and histhree wives. His family tended cattle. After hecompleted his PhD at University College London,Landouré returned for twoweeks to theUS,wherehe’d previously worked at the NIH. “People weresaying, ‘Why don’t you stay?’ I said, ‘No, I came tothe country to look for something I could not getat home’,” he says. “PhDs are thousands in the US,thousands in the UK, but a PhD in neurology orneurogenetics in Mali? There are none. My goal is

‘WehavelivedthelongestashumansontheAfricancontinent,andthathasvery,veryimportantimplicationsforunderstandinghowforcesthatexistedonthecontinenthelpedshapepresent-dayhumangenomes’CharlesRotimi,Maryland,US

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nottogosomewherewhereit iseasyformetowork,orwhereIcangetbetterpaid.No.Mygoalistocomehere to get knowledge that I can also transmit tootherpeoplebackinmycountry, thosewhodidnotget theopportunity to comehere, to train them.”In 2015, Landouré received his H3Africa grant

to study the genetic roots of hereditary neuro-logical disorders such as muscular dystrophy orHuntington’s disease. Many such disorders arebeing studied elsewhere. Some even have a cure.“Butwehavenotevendonethesurveyof thesedis-eases inAfrica,” he says.Five months ago, Landouré’s lab discovered a

form of progressivemyoclonic epilepsy caused bya genetic mutation that had previously only beendocumented in two other patients, a German andan Italian. The disorder can be treated with aninexpensive compound called folinic acid. “Thepatient couldnot evenhold their headup, andwascompletely absent. But whenwe saw him later, hewasplaying!”hesays. “Soyoucanseehowgeneticscan change that child’s life. This is whatmakes usthink thatwe should continue.”Walking through the lab, it is impossible not to

recognise the extreme limitations most Africanscientistsmustworkunder.“It’scompletelydiffer-ent,” Landouré says. An NIH lab in the US comesfully kitted-out, with expert colleagues to bounceideas off. “But here, when I came, they give you anempty space.Youbring everything.”The lab has a number of state-of-the-art instru-

ments, kept under floral plastic sheeting. Shippingcosts anddiesel for the generator eat up a lot of thebudget. Landouré’sH3Africa funding is being usedfortheentireneurologydepartment.Itfundsbursa-ries for students, the clinicdownstairs and trainingfor students and faculty alike – important capacitybuilding, though it takesaway fromtheresearch.But he hopes it will sustainmedical research in

Mali for years to come, instilling trust in peoplewho might otherwise be wary. “I think it’s moreacceptable to the African population if they seetheirAfricanpeersdoing the research, rather thanseeing people from outside,” he says. “That canremindpeople of the old days, of people coming inand taking the resources andgoingout.”

In 1996, the Nigerian city of Kano was hit bythe worst meningitis outbreak in Africa’s his-tory, infecting 120,000 people. Médecins SansFrontières and other non-governmental organisa-tions convened at the infectious disease hospital.Another teamarrived fromPfizer, theglobalphar-maceuticals company,whichwas in the late stagesof testing ameningitis drug.“[Pfizer] saw an opportunity for a phase 3

clinical trial,” says Babatunde Irukera, the lawyerwho represented Nigeria in the lawsuit thatfollowed. “They scrambled together a team and…started conducting their clinical trial.” Pfizer staffwore no badges differentiating themselves fromthe humanitarian workers, he says. “People weresending their children to themthinking theyweregoing to treat them,” adds Irukera, now head ofNigeria’s Federal Competition and ConsumerProtectionCommission.In 2009, Pfizer paid $75m to settle the result-

ing lawsuit. “It was an indication of the kinds ▶

‘Whenwesayequityinsciencenowisimportant,specificallywiththeAfricanpopulation,it’snotaboutcharity... It’sabsolutelynecessaryforustodothesciencethewayitshouldbedone.Otherwise,weall lose’AmbroiseWonkam,CapeTown,SouthAfrica

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◀ of things that had been going on in this coun-try for years: pharma companies conducting testswithout proper controls,” says Irukera. “Pfizerclaims it conducted informed consent, but wehave no evidence of that. These are people whodon’t speakEnglish.”Ina2009statementannouncing thesettlement,

inwhich Pfizer denied anywrongdoing or liability,the group said that “the 1996 studywas conductedwith the approval of theNigerian government andthe consent of the participants’ parents or guardi-ans, andwasconsistentwithNigerian laws”.Commercialisation has long been a fraught sub-

ject in scientific research, especiallywhen it comesto informed consent and compensation. Ques-tions overwhether the subject should be paid havebeen debated for years. Perhaps the most famousexample is Henrietta Lacks, the African-Ameri-can woman whose unique “immortal” cells wereharvested by researchers without her knowledgebefore she died. Their indefinite ability to growmeans they have been used in nearly everymajormedical advance in the past half century, but herdescendantshavenever receivedcompensation.The Lacks case is a relic of a time before

informed consent. But researchers inAfrica todaymust figure out how to obtain it from everyone,including those who may not yet have words like“DNA”or “gene” in their native tongue.TheUK’sWellcomeSangerInstitutewasrecently

embroiledinacontroversyoverwhistleblowercom-plaints that it planned tomisuse samples obtainedin Uganda and elsewhere in Africa. These includeaccusations that it was attempting to commercial-ise the products of the research without properconsent. Sanger, one of theworld’s leading genom-ics institutions, has denied the allegations, citingtwo independent investigations it commissionedthat found no wrongdoing. In a statement, it said:“Thecauseof concernwasapotential commercial-isation proposal froman individual working at theInstitute at the time. The Institute did not pursuethisproposal.”Separately,duringthe2014Ebolaepidemic,doc-

tors and researchers from around the world tookmore than 269,000 blood samples from patientsin Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia. None gaveconsent for themtobeused for research.But thou-sandsofsamplesweresenttoforeignlabsincludingPublic Health England, according to reporting bythe journalist Emmanuel Freudenthal. Beyondthe lack of patient consent, this left researchers inthose countrieswithout access to the samples thatinmanycases they themselves collected.Christian Happi, one of Africa’s leading

scientists, was part of the team that sequencedEbola during the outbreak. The Cameroonian,nowbased inNigeria, tellsmeover the phone thattheteammadethedatapublic immediatelysothatit could be used to find treatment. “We were notreally interested in termsof storing thesamplesorkeeping the samples or making the fancy Natureor Science paper,” he says. “And that’s what’sdifferent between us that are on the ground andcare about our people, and those that are called‘parachute scientists’”.Happi grows animated as he describes how

Africa has the skills, facilities and knowledge toholdon to its genetic endowment. “Wehavemany,many centres of excellence, we have plenty ofpeoplewho trained in thebest schools in theworldthat are back on the continent. There shouldn’t be

any room for samples to keep going out of Africaany more,” he says. “There’s no point saying thatyoumaintain andkeep all this inEurope, and any-time there’s [a crisis] you parachute inwith all theskills andall the toolsandeventuallygoback.Thatis no longer acceptable.“We should be collaborating but… you can’t go

to America and then take DNA samples out justanyhow.Youcan’tgotoEuropeandtakeDNAsam-plesorvirussamplesoutanyhow.Whyshouldthatbedifferenthere?”Such questions have been pondered inside

H3Africa for years, says Jenniffer Mabuka, headof the programme at the African Academy ofSciences. “What if a commercial company, forexample, camehere and requested data and 10, 15years down the line were able to make a [block-buster] drug out of it?” she says. “How do thepeoplewhocontributed that databenefit?”Options for compensation could include free

access to diagnostic services, discounted access tothe drugs developed from their genetic material,donations to local clinics – or,most simply and farmore controversially, cash.Many researchers contend that subjects

shouldn’t be compensated as it could compromisethe science. It also takes years of analysis beforeanyone can tell whether a mutation means any-thing.“The ideathat Iwould learnsomething fromyourgenomeandthenexploit[it] isactuallyprettyrare,”saysLawrenceBrody,directorofthedivisionof genomics and society at the National HumanGenomeResearch Institute atNIH.Buttheissueiscomplicatedbythewest’shistory

of plunder in Africa. From diamonds to gold,oil, bauxite, rare earths and, of course, people– the continent is rich in resources but has seenalmost no benefit from its bounty. Big Pharma’srecord is no better than Big Oil’s. What is to keepAfrica’s great genetic diversity frombecoming yetanother resource that is extractedand refined intomultibillion-dollar drugs abroad?

F undingforH3Africawilldryupintwo years. There is no sign of anygovernment or institution readyto step in, even as its researchis only beginning to reveal thepromise the continent holds. Itsleaders believe the investmentsthey’ve made will allow African

scientists to better compete for fundingwith theirglobalpeers.Butthoseresearcherswillalsohavetoget creative abouthow to fund theirwork.Since the Human Genome Project there has

been a dramatic reduction in the cost of sequenc-ing–from$500m-$1bnintheearly2000s,tounder$1,000 per genome today. That hasmade Africa amore attractive destination for research dollars,despite being higher risk and logistically complex.But the allure of African genomics, both commer-cially and scientifically, has elevated a familiardebate that isparticularlyacute inacontinentwithahistoryof exploitation: profitversuspurpose.This became apparent in my discussions with

Happiand, separately,AbasiEne-Obong.Hiscom-pany, 54gene, raised$4.5minventure funding lastyear tocreateAfrica’sfirstprivatebiobankandhasjust launchedaprogrammetosequencetheDNAof100,000Nigerians.Both geneticists trained at world-class insti-

tutions (Happi at Harvard and Ene-Obong at

the University of London), and both speak aboutbroadly similar goals: to advance science by tap-ping into Africa’s potential, to give back to thecontinent and bring Africans into the genomicsrevolution.ButHappi’sapproachsuggestsachoicemust be made between profit and purpose; Ene-Obong believes you canhave it all.This summer, Happi will open a $4m genom-

ics centre on the campusofRedeemer’sUniversityin Nigeria, funded mainly by the World Bank.The centre will primarily be a research institu-tion, but it will also offer consulting, sequencingand training courses for academics and publichealth officials. “Our goal is to see howwe can usegenomic informationtoactuallyaddressproblemsin Africa… saving lives, making impact, withoutthinking about enriching ourselves first,” he says.“It’s aboutmaking it sustainable.”Ene-Obong’s office in Lagos still bears the pop-

pingprimarycoloursof54gene’searlyhistoryasanAfrican version of Ancestry.com or 23andMe, theUSconsumergeneticsunicorn.He is abigguywitha gentle dispositionwho smiles easily. Hismissionfor 54genehas somecrucial differences toHappi’s.“The question is, are we just building a researchtoolor is itabusiness?”hesays.“It’sabusiness.Butwe want to build a better reference set… becausethe current leading reference set that is used in theworlddoesn’t even containmy tribe.”He is referring to the 1,000 Genomes Project,

which followed the Human Genome Project andwasmeant to address the dearth of non-Europeanpopulations. In fact, it includesneither his father’sEfik tribenorhismother’s Igbo, ofwhomthere aremore than30million inNigeria.The company’s planned 100,000-Nigerian

database – which it is sourcing from hospitals andacademic institutions – is something that phar-maceutical companies would likely pay hefty feesto access. As Matthew Nelson, head of genetics atGlaxoSmithKline, tells me: “If I was able to accessa full medical history of 500,000 people acrossfive countries in Africa, and analyse genetic datafrom that, that would be a far better investmentin understanding genes and disease than another500,000-person study inEurope.”ButEne-Obongalsowants54genetoworkalong

the drug discovery chain, from contract researchfor pharma companies to clinical trials to poten-tially doing drug discovery themselves. He wantsthe company to be a “precision-medicine power-house” so that it can create targeted treatmentsforAfricans.“But that’sasideeffectof thework,”he tellsme.

“Wewant to be able to build value, and that valuecould be drugs that treat people across the worldbutwith a preference also for drugs fromdiseasesthat affectAfricans disproportionately.”The plan is to partnerwith pharma companies,

research institutions, governments and biotech.“The [sheer] number of companies that havereached out – there is a real interest in studyingdiseases in this population, and we just want tomake sure that it’s all done sustainably and donewell,”he toldme, amonthafter the companypub-licly launched last July.Ene-Obong insists the company can contribute

to science, give back to Africa and make a profit.Happi is not convinced. “What are we doing toensure that there is equity, that there is fairness,that you have properly compensated for the gift –I mean it is a gift – that they have donated to


mankind?” Happi says he effectively asked Ene-Obong in a recent H3Africa teleconference. Hesays he’s fine with the private sector engagingtransparently, but wasn’t satisfied with what hesayswereEne-Obong’s vague answers.54gene’s ethics chief,AminuYakubu, servedas

chairofH3Africa’sethicscommitteebeforejoiningthe company last year in September. He tells me54gene’s ethical framework aligns broadly withH3Africa’s, though it is evolving. Roughly 5 to 20per cent of the profits from its research contractswith companies will go to a foundation in eachcountry it operates in. Committees of eminentscientists and societal leaders will decide wherethemoney goes.Yakubu notes that the ethics of compensation

are complicated. Would mentioning the prospectofcompensationfromahypotheticalbillion-dollardrug in a consent form improperly induce some-one living on $2 a day into participating? Shouldany benefits go only to those who participated inthe study or their entire community? Their ethnicgroup? Their country? Still, if a single person’sgenesareused tocreateadrug sometimedowntheline, Yakubu says the company would want thatperson to get aportionof theprofits.Ene-Obong tells me he’d noticed something

among “old academics, researchers” doing genet-ics in Africa. “They see us moving fast and theysee us being successful and they are threatenedbecause, you know, suddenly the light is leavingthemand coming towards us.”Still, he says that he wants to work with aca-

demia. He already has collaborations withresearchers and institutions in Nigeria, includ-ing someaffiliatedwithH3Africa. This is essentialto 54gene’s work and he wants to do more. “Thepeople whowill suffer if [such] tensions continueare African, because the two sides will be focusedoneachotherandpeoplewon’t begetting theben-efits of either,” he says. “In other countries, youhave a situation where private [companies] andacademics come together to partner… [but] I canunderstandwhy there is contention inAfrica –weare the first private entity doing this.”WithH3Africa’s funding running out, such col-

laboration will become increasingly important.Whatever happens, genomic research in Africamust continue, says Rotimi. “For the first time inhuman history, we now have the necessary toolsin terms of biotechnology, computational infra-structure and the scientific understanding of howto interrogatehumangenomes…andweknowthatAfrica is thehomeofhumanity,” he says.Rotimi is the godfather of African genomics

research, widely creditedwith pushing the notionthat we should study the continent’s populations.Bringing in more African scientists and studyingAfricangenomesis,hesays,bothascientificimper-ative andamatter of social justice.“Thescientificimperativeisthattherearethings

in the human genome that we cannot study any-where else but on the African continent, becauseof the evolutionary history of humanity,” he says.“The social justice issue is that if we don’t engagethis part of the world, then whatever gains we’regoingtoget fromusinggenomicsto improvehealthoragricultureoreventheeconomy, thatpartof theworld is going to be left behind, just like a lot ofother revolutionspassedoverAfrica.”

NeilMunshi is the FT’sWest Africa correspondent

’Wewanttobeabletobuildvalue,andthatvaluecouldbedrugsthattreatpeopleacrosstheworldbutwithapreferencealsofordrugsfromdiseasesthataffectAfricansdisproportionately’AbasiEne-Obong,Lagos,Nigeria

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‘Fame. Tricky thingto navigate’In her latest film, Keira Knightley plays a real-life activistwhodisrupted the 1970MissWorld competition in London.The actor talks to Emma Jacobs aboutmotherhood,#MeToo andher own ‘feminist awakening’


Keira Knightley is ahypocrite. And so are you.“We’re all hypocrites,” shesays. “We’re human beings.Being a human being isbeing a hypocrite.”

People, with all theirmessy contradictions, rarely live up to theirvirtuous ideals. That is how Knightley squaresa successful career in an industry that projectsimpossible beauty standards – while alsoapplauding the feminist protests at the 1970Miss World competition, the subject of her newfilm,Misbehaviour.

Knightley plays Sally Alexander, the real-lifeactivist who, together with fellow members of thenew Women’s Liberation Movement, interruptedthe pageant with ink-squirting toy guns, footballrattles and flour bombs. Their actions brought thecampaign against the objectification of women toa television audience of 100 million.

For Knightley, exploring conflicting interests– such as the challenge of balancing her ownfeminist principles with the demands of her job– was part of the film’s attraction. “That’s whyI wanted to do it!” she says, with such force youcan almost see the exclamation marks projectfrom her mouth. “I came into this completelyon the side of the women’s libbers. Totally.Completely. Yes, 100 per cent, this is disgusting.And yet, I am somebody that makes my living,most of my money, from being a model [incampaigns for Chanel and others] and fromdoing red carpets.”

On the day we meet in a central Londonhotel, she is impeccably groomed in a Loeweblack jacket, with smoky eye make-up andwaved hair. There have been moments on thered carpet, she says, when she felt she was in“a dog show” with “f**king creepy cameras”.

Yet compromised principles are no excusefor inertia. “You’re going to find very few peoplelike Greta Thunberg. [But] by going, ‘Oh God,therefore I can’t say anything’, then nothing isgoing to happen,” she says. “Nothing’s going tochange in any direction whatsoever.”

Knightley may be best known for playing theromantic heroine in a slew of period dramas– from 2005’s Pride&Prejudice (which earnedher an Oscar and Golden Globe nomination), toAtonement in 2007 (for which she was shortlistedfor a Bafta and Golden Globe) andAnnaKareninain 2012. But it would be a mistake to pigeon-hole her. She has increasingly embraced morecomplicated, unconventional roles.

In Colette (2018), she played the bisexualFrench writer and music-hall star, while inDavid Cronenberg’sADangerousMethod (2011),her character Sabina Spielrein was spanked byCarl Jung (Michael Fassbender), before becominga psychotherapist. There is no strategy behind▶


◀her choice of films, she insists. “I read scriptsand I go, ‘Yes, I want to dive into that.’”At just 34,Knightley alreadyhas 28 years

of acting behind her. As a dyslexic childgrowing up in Teddington, south-west London,her parents (Will Knightley, an actor, andSharmanMacdonald, an actor, screenwriter andplaywright) encouraged her to act as a reward forstudying. Her breakout role was in 2002’sBend ItLike Beckham, a comedy about girls’ football.Sport had been her “feminist awakening”, shesays. “I was really good at football and, suddenly,looking and going, ‘Wait a f**king second,I couldn’t be a professional footballer.’”While Knightley is refreshingly candid

about her views onmany things, speedingthrough an array of subjects, including nudity,motherhood and #MeToo, she has learnt toprotect her privacy around certain aspects ofher life. Early success took its toll, and at 22 shesufferedmental health problems. “Fame. Trickything to navigate.”Why? “That is a very longconversation,” she replies, politely but firmlymoving the discussion on.What drewher toMisbehaviourwere the

interwoven themes of feminism and racism,which lift the script above a simple narrativeof plucky feminists (good) versus sexistmen(bad).We seeMissWorld founder EricMorley,played byRhys Ifans, trying to avert a boycottand appease the anti-apartheidmovementby adding a black SouthAfrican contestant –Miss Africa South – to SouthAfrica’s white entry.It also shows how themedia’s focus on thewhitefavourites –Miss America andMiss Sweden–meant the black contestants were initiallyoverlooked, includingMiss Grenada (played byGuguMbatha-Raw), whowent on towin, andMiss Africa South, who came second.ThewhiteWomen’s Liberation activists

see the competition as degrading. For theblack contestants, it is an opportunity.AsMbatha-Raw’sMiss Grenada tells Knightley’sSally Alexander: “I look forward to having yourchoices in life.”Knightleywas intrigued by the film’s “two very

distinct points of view... it doesn’t judge. It doesn’ttell youwhat to think. It’s dealingwith feminism,and intersectional privilege and racism. It feltvery current, and yet it was 50 years ago.”I say that the scene showing the beauty

pageant contestants lining up on stage, and

‘Now, it’s Instagram. It’s howmany likes do you get foryour ‘belfies’, bum selfie…It’s so complicated’

Bend It Like Beckham (2002) Pride & Prejudice (2005) Atonement (2007) A Dangerous Method (2011)

Activist Sally Alexander (Knightley) with Miss Grenada (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) in Misbehaviour (2020)


turning around to show their swimsuit-encasedbottoms, felt shocking. Knightley counters:“Now, it’s Instagram. It’s howmany likes do youget for your… ‘belfies’, bum selfie. It’s the derrièrepart of the beauty pageant. It’s so complicated.”Many of the themes of the 1970s are relevanttoday, she continues. “Wewant a lovely littlestory cycle where [there] is the problem, andthen it was fixed. Change takes a very long time.”

Misbehaviour is unusual in that it waswrittenbywomen (Rebecca Frayn andGaby Chiappe),produced bywomen (SuzanneMackie andSarah-JaneWheale), and directed by awoman(Philippa Lowthorpe). “Female directors are heldto a higher standard thanmen,” Knightley argues.“Unless their first film is perfect, and itmakesmoney, and it gets critical success, they’re notgiven another film.Men are givenmuch biggerleeway.” SilentNight, her next film –which shedescribes intriguingly as LoveActuallymixedwithLars vonTrier – is alsomade by a female director,Camille Griffin. She is hungry towork onmorefemale-led films. “[Women’s] stories aren’t beingtold fromour points of view. It’s shocking.”

BeforemakingMisbehaviour, Knightley knewnothing about second-wave feminism,whichwasmakingwaves in the 1960s and 1970s, aside from“anecdotal stuff” fromhermum.As part of herresearch, she spent timewith Sally Alexander,who is now an eminent feminist historian.Alexander handed her The CommunistManifesto,to get a flavour of the kind of books shewasreading at the time. Knightley admits she hasyet to finish it.

Oneaspect of the 1970s life portrayed in thefilm that appealedwas communal living, whichKnightley declares “sounded like a really f**kinggood idea”. She lives in north Londonwith hermusician husband, James Righton, formerly oftheKlaxons. “Being amother of two very youngchildren [aged four, and fivemonths] – one adultto two young children is not enough. Two adults isstill quite [hard]. Three, you start going, actually,this is doablewith three. Anymore than three?F**king brilliant.”

In 2018, Knightleywrote a powerful, visceralessay about her experience ofmotherhood andworking in film, entitled “TheWeaker Sex”.“My vagina split,” shewrote of childbirth andthe stitches she needed afterwards. “You cameoutwith your eyes open. Arms up in the air.

Screaming. They put you on tome, covered inblood, vernix, your headmisshapen from thebirth canal. Pulsating, gasping, screaming.”

Birth, in all its gunkymess, is overlooked bystorytellers, she says.We are squeamish overthat, while the blood and gore of war and violenceis a regular feature on screen. “It’s howwe all gothere. It’s what half of the population do. It’s whatnoman can in anyway physically understand,can comprehend in any physical way, oremotional way, or hormonal way. And it’s storiesthat we don’t tell. Partly because our storytellersaremen. And it’s the one part of our lives, of ourbodies, that they have noway to understand. Andyet, we don’t talk about it.”

When I ask if she findsmotherhood hard,she looks atme like I’m bonkers. “Doesn’teverybody?” I nod. “I don’t think you can fullycomprehend until you start doing it, that it is themost difficult thing that you are ever going to doin your life. Birth is just the beginning of it. Birth,yes. And then, what happens afterwards? Thenthe sleep deprivation, and the sleep deprivationwhen your body is ripped to pieces and you’re stilltrying to heal. And you’ve got a small being thatis entirely reliant on you. Andwe live in a societywhere you’remeant to pretend that you’re ableto do that, and you’re fine, and you’re on top of it.”

Being a newmother is “difficult andwonderful”, she says. “You can be crying oneminute and laughing the next.” Going back toworkwhen her first childwas fourmonths old,travelling overseas away from friends and familywas, she says, amistake. “It was very difficult.”When she had her youngest, she stayed put.

The problemwith only seeing idealised imagesofmotherhood, she says, is that newmothersfeel desperately alone, or like failures for findingit hard. “You’re an entirely different person [bybecoming amother]. But that transition to beingan entirely different person isn’t easy. That ideathat any of that should be easy, that it should beseamless, I find it really offensive.”

Having children has changed her professionallife in one significantway – shewill no longer stripoff in front of the camera. “The nipples droop,”she says. “I always felt completely comfortabledoing it when Iwas younger. I never did anythingthat I didn’t feel comfortable doing. I’m reallyhappywithmy body. It’s done an amazing thing.But I also don’t want to stand there in front of awhole film crew.”

The internet is also a factor. “It used to be thatyou’d do a sex scene in isolationwith the film,and it wouldmake sense. Andmaybe a crappypaperwould put it somewhere but, ultimately,that would be it. But now, you can take thewholething and put it in a completely different thing,and it’s on some porn site.”

I ask about #MeToo and the lack of diversityin the nominees (andwinners) at this year’sBaftas andOscars. “It’s going to take a very longtime inHollywood, as it [does] everywhereelse.”Has she been underpaid comparedwith amale peer? “I haven’t known,” she says. “Partlybecause it didn’t feel like that was a fight thatcould have beenwon. I have known recently thatI’ve been paid the same andmore. So, that’s good.I’ll take that.”

“Misbehaviour” is released in cinemas onMarch 13.Emma Jacobs is an FT featureswriterAnna Karenina (2012) Colette (2018)

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warmth I had shared before. But somethingabout me had changed. I was no longertransported by the stories: now I was tryingto decide if they were lying.

Somewhere along the way, I had picked upthe instinct to be on guard against other people’sdespair, against their need, thinking only oftheir potential. Where did I learn this?

Despite all the talkof leadership andchangemaking, what you actually learn atHarvard Business School is how to be believed.Some of that, we were taught, is achieved bydeveloping a reputation for honesty, forprecision. Some is communicated throughsignals and codes, the kind we have in everyprofession. My classmates and I had privilegedupbringings: not all wealthy but from educatedfamilies (like mine, who were doctors), ortrained at prestigious firms and universities.We had internalised the language of the trustedclasses. Over hundreds of case-methoddiscussions, we taught it to each other.

Here is something I learnt: before we decidehow to listen to a story, we put people on aspectrum. Do they come to us with need orpotential? Should we listen with our guardup or our imagination on? Will aligning withthis person benefit or drain us? How does thestoryteller signal, before that first interaction,that they are worthy of an unguarded,imaginative listen?

Anyone with a boss knows the basics:lock eyes, shake hands firmly, under-promise,over-deliver, repeat. At HBS, we picked upother ways to affect the need-potential calculus:when pitching something, dismantle scepticismby arguing against yourself. If a narrative lackscomplexity, put it into an intellectuallysatisfying framework. And so on.

The most important signal is this: you don’tneed them – they need you.Your value lies inthe vastness of your potential, sowalk into everyroompotential first.

Later, I went through my HBS list and tried tofigure out what it would be like if a refugee in anasylum interview had this same tool kit. Mostrefugees try to win the interviewers’ affections▶

How to bebelievedWhy do we listen torefugees in one way andHarvard Business Schoolstudents in another?By Dina Nayeri

When Iwas a girl in Iran,mycousins and Iwould wait for nightfall to gather in the backgarden of our grandparents’ house. We’dwhisper as our grandfather emerged, grandly,to tell us dramatic, fantastical stories. We hungon the twists and turns of the tales he woveto transport us. He always found a reason totake out his false teeth and, by the time he did,we were primed to believe hewas the monsterwith the aching jaw or the old man who dranktooth-melting poison.

Twenty years later, at Harvard BusinessSchool, I sat across from a friend and listenedas he described a business venture. That toowas invented; we were in a mock negotiation.Each of us had a set of information we couldshare or hide, plus whatever backstory wewanted to add.

I listened to his phrasing, searching forqualifiers that might force his hand. How muchmoney was he willing to give up? Which of thecontract terms were vital to him but less so tome? When the professor later revealed thenegotiating position of both characters, I felttriumphant, my friend felt betrayed. Notbecause he had lost – but because I had listenedto his story in the unkindest way, digging forvulnerability. I hadn’t seen him at all.

It took me a long time to realise that I listen tostories differently. I became aware of it with thesame astonishment and betrayed fury that myfour-year-old felt when she learnt that there’sno correlation between gender and hair length.What else have Imissed before now?

At 10 years old, I was living in a refugee campoutside Rome. My mother, brother and I hadescaped Iran the previous year and had beenplaced there by UNHCR. We spent most of ourtime reminiscing with fellow residents overcheap cups of tea, comforted by the instantbond of a shared life story. After almost twoyears of displacement, my family was grantedasylum – and later citizenship – in the US.

Fast forward to 2016, I was a mother in aworld hostile to refugees; I craved to understandmy past. So, I started spending time withrefugees again. I found local immigrantcommunities, expecting the same ease and

ANNA

LEADER


Illustrations by Julien Posture

Observations


Observations

◀ by praising their host country.What ifa refugeemade it clear that she didn’t wantto be there (ie argued against herself)?That she’d rather be at home but had littlechoice? Asylum lawyers have toldme that thisworks – officers are taught a precise definitionof refugee. A real refugee has no choice.

The codeworks, then – it’s just that onlya few are trained in it. For the refugee,there is no truth beyondwhat is provable.Whereas, to the bright young thingwitha passport and a vision, it doesn’tmatterwhat you can prove, only that you canmakesomeone believe in the possibility of you.

When venture capitalists listened toElizabethHolmes’ fantasies of revolutionisingblood testing at her companyTheranos, theywanted to be involved in somethingworld-changing. They believed in the possibility ofHolmes as a child-genius, anAmericanMarieCurie with a deep voice and a solid family.Shewas 19, a college dropoutwith no prototype,and she claimed to have solved some of themost vexing problems in lab testing. Her earlyinterviews should have left little doubt of herrudimentary scientific training. It didn’tmatter.

By the height of her alleged deception(or delusion) in 2014, whenHolmeswasinterviewed byTheNewYorker’s KenAuletta, shewas practically broadcasting herignorance ofmedical science. Auletta calledherwords “comically vague”, but therewas nouprising from investors when their healthcarerevolutionary described theworkings ofher invention like this: “A chemistry isperformed so that a chemical reaction occurs.”

In interviews, John Carreyrou, TheWallStreet Journal reporter who broke the story,put it down to hubris. I think it wasmore acase of hope run amok. People suspendeddisbelief to the point of naivety becauseHolmes had potential. And she had alignedherself with “stellar” or “reputable” people.She didn’t know science but she knew thecode. “Nothing can be off at a companywherearguably America’smost famous lawyer isguarding the shop,” quipped Carreyrou aboutthe Theranos boardmemberDavid Boies.

‘Refugees come to uswith needbut we tell them there is noroom for human error… for theflawed human. Their stories areshorn of trivial oddities’


TheLondoncharity FreedomfromTortureoperates one of the largest and most-respectedforensic torture documentation services in theworld. In a 2016 report called Proving Torture,its doctors and researchers wrote that someUK asylum caseworkers “apply the incorrectstandard of proof to the claimant’s account”.For refugees, the law requires a “reasonablylikely” standard of proof. Instead, researchersfound officers were using something closer tothe criminal standard “beyond reasonabledoubt”, rejecting cases on the existence ofremote other possibilities. “They’re listeningfor a single inconsistency,” said Katy Robjant,FFT’s director of national clinical services.“They are trained to disbelieve.”

I spoke with a former UK Home Officepresenting officer, a British woman of Middle-Eastern descent, about how she listened tostories. Her job, from 2014 to 2016, was to arguecases on behalf of Theresa May’s Home Office.“No one questioned what our job was: it was tocatch inconsistencies. That was our training…‘Oh, you said 6pm here and 7pm there.’”

I asked if she ever tried to imagine her wayinto the stories. It wasn’t her job, she said.

“I found myself saying, ‘He’s lying, he’slying…’ I know from where I live that shammarriages are happening. Men fromAfghanistan and Pakistan marrying womenfrom Poland, Lithuania, Romania. There’sa whole system. There are accountants,caseworkers, solicitors, landlords. So whenI’m at work and see these individuals, I knowwhat to ask. I know they’re lying. Many ofthese guys aren’t the brightest... They getstuck in their own web of lies.”

Now and then, however, despite her training,a story roused her imagination and shewastransported, the truth of a situation apparentonly to her. Once, a caseworker refused tobelieve that a two-year romance could happenin the streets, in cars, leaving no trace: not asingle photo, note or text. “But I know thatin Afghanistan you have to have relationshipsin secret, because if our parents found out,they’d kill us.” So, she convinced the otherofficer. Would an English person have tried

the next will bring me joy. I don’t expect onestory to fulfil my every literary need.

I read literature the way Marc doles outcapital: with his imagination on, ready tobelieve, because he expects half his visionariesto flop. He saves his scrutiny for the portfolio.I care about my intellectual resources as hedoes his financial ones, but comfort with riskenriches us both.

Why don’t we apply such wisdom beyondour places of abundance? In the west, we teachour children how to be believed – we codifytruth for them. We tell them that they can failand try again, wipe out their shortcomings andbecome credible. But refugees come to us withneed and we tell them that there is no room forhuman error, because there is no room for theflawed human. Their stories are shorn of trivialoddities, stripped of colour, removed from thefive senses – only the progression and the logicmatters. Any discrepancy will damn them,so it’s better not to transport the listener.

In 2017, in a refugee camp in Greece, I metan Isfahani tailor who wanted to design hisown clothes. I met a psychologist from Tehranwith an idea for a fascinating paper. I met acontractor who sketched buildings. They hadlofty goals and they told them to me. After Ileft, they hid these aspirations. Each sat acrossfrom a tired bureaucrat who listened to arehearsed series of events and ticked boxes,waiting for a fumble.

Soon after, I read that the bodies of migrantfather Oscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his23-month-old daughter, Valeria, were found inthe Rio Grande. Then 39 Vietnamese refugeesdied in the back of a lorry in Essex. Everyonelistened. These stories happen and we readilybelieve them, mourn them and share them,because all risk and promise are gone. There isno more spectrum of hope and fear, promiseand need. Their stories are finished now,ready to be inscribed in the literature we readgenerously and believe.

Dina Nayeri is the author of “The UngratefulRefugee” (2019) and is writing a new non-fictionbook about who gets believed

to understand Afghani youth codes andcultures? Absolutely not, she said. You’d haveto teleport to Afghanistan to understand.

A fewdays ago, I spoke toMarc, aMcKinseyfriend turned angel investor. I asked him how helistened to entrepreneurs. He talked about thegrandiose slaughterhouse CEO, the visionaryBroadway producer who sold him on two shows,the friends and family who trusted him when heinvited them to join him. As he spoke, I realisedhis every investment decision was based onbelieving in somebody, not their stories orbusiness plans. Only people. Why did this seemso right to me? As a writer, I know that goodfiction is populated with complex, surprisingcharacters. Maybe the same is true of goodinvestments. “Well, that and diversification,”said Marc. “Be sure whatever money you putin, you’re willing to lose it all.”

This makes sense too. A good investment isabout finding opportunities before it’s obviousto everyone else. So, you bet on a dozen andhope one pays off, freeing yourself from theconstant calculation of each individual’s placeon the spectrum: promise or need. As long asyour portfolio is diverse, you can gamble ona long shot – you can hope.

Do I listen to others with this much hopeand excitement? Or do I listen with my guardup because I’m afraid of a wrong call?

When my daughter tells stories, I dig forsigns of what has happened at school. I amafraid of a single wrong call and that fearmomentarily outweighs my hopes.

As a young consultant, barely out of college,I listened to client stories for inefficiencies Icould fix so I could prove myself a star. I couldn’tstomach a single mistake.

When I read novels, though, I am generous,looking for subtext, for artful language.I want to be moved, surprised, as I was in mygrandfather’s garden. Though I have a finelytuned bullshit detector, in the end, I’m itchingto believe. When I’m reading, my motives arepure and empathetic. I’m comfortable delvinginto other people’s mourning, humiliation,need. I accept that one book will drain me,


INTO THE FRAMEDutch photographer RinekeDijkstra is bestknown for her contemporary take on the portrait.As a newexhibition opens, she tellsAndrewDicksonhow shediscovers her subjects andwhy her imagesare ‘proudly old-fashioned’

‘Self-portrait, Marnixbad, Amsterdam, June 19 1991’


‘Hel, Poland, August 12 1998’


‘I THINK IT’S ALWAYS BETTERNOT TO SHOW TOO MUCH;YOU HAVE SPACE FOR YOUROWN INTERPRETATION’

‘Chen and Efrat, Israel, May 21 2005’

‘Chen and Efrat, Israel, November 18 1999’

‘Sophie and Alice, Savolinna, Finland, August 3 2013’

‘Arden and Miran, London, February 16 2020’


theories. On displaywill be some of the series that have becomeher signature: those three sisters, captured inAmsterdambetween 2008-14, and a pair of identical twins from Israel,depicted over the course of their adolescence. Stand-aloneimages of family groups are here too. As oftenwithDijkstra’swork, teens predominate: though these are stills, by and large,the effect is of people changing almost before our eyes. “I likethis dynamic feeling, that things aren’t fixed yet,” she reflectson photographing young people. “Everything is still possible.”Born in the southernNetherlands and trained at art school

in Amsterdam, Dijkstra began photographing professionallyin the 1980s, shooting people in clubs formagazines and doingcorporate jobs. But she chafed at the formulas of commissionedwork; shewanted to create images of people that wentmorethan skin-deep. Recovering froma bike accident in 1990, shebegan to take portraits of herself emerging from a swimmingpool. A series on children and teenagers on the beach, by turnsunguarded and provocative, followed. It led to other projectson nakedmothers with their newborns, as well as on bloodiedbullfighters emerging from the ring. Each series is shot in asimilar format and using theminimumof props. “I think it’salways better not to show toomuch; you have space for yourown interpretation,” says Dijkstra.Even now, she uses the same tools: a large-format, 4in by

5in analogue camera and colour film. Froma technical pointof view, she’s proudly old-fashioned, she laughs. “The cameraworks slowly, so people understand that it is going to take awhile. Exposures can take a couple of hours, every exposure acouple ofminutes. It demands some concentration, but at thesame time it creates an intensity that involves the sitters.”Though she’s sometimes compared toDianeArbus, that

master of the confrontational portrait, Dijkstra herself feels anaffinitywith the great German photographer August Sander(1876-1964), whomade it his life’s work to capture his fellowcitizens, fromboxers and circus performers to politicians.▶

‘Emma, Lucy, Cécile 2011-12’, from the series ‘Three Sisters’ 2008-14

Theupstairs back roomatMarianGoodmanGallery incentral London is a crowd of faces. In a corner, resting onfoambolsters, there’s a large photograph of two youngwomenin a forest. One is standing, the other sitting on the ground.Bothwear bikinis: they look a little combative, as if daring uswhat to think. On the opposite wall, another six photographs ofwomen are lined up.With their identikit white backgrounds,they resemblemugshots or passport photos. It takes you amoment to notice the resemblance, eyes especially: threesisters, photographed at different ages. Similar but different.Variations on a theme.Few contemporary artists have focused so obsessively on

the human form as theDutch photographer RinekeDijkstra.For 35-odd years, she has photographed little else. Oftenthe people she captures stand full-length in the places sheencountered them, on the beach or in parks. Printed large, nearlife-size, these images both offer andwithhold information; allwe’re usually given is a first name or a place and date. You findyourself conjuring stories – this schoolboy looks like he’d becool to hang outwith, that teenage girl seemswise beyond heryears. Those two boys perched together on a single chair in abaywindow – a newphotograph – look curiously old-fashioned,with their identical poses and sober expressions, as if theyinhabit a previous century. Like all great portraiture, thesepictures invite us into the frame.Dijkstra, 60, isn’t sure, even as she prepares to open a new

exhibition, what draws her to these people. Themost she cansay – hesitantly, almost shyly – is that somehow they captureher attention. She’ll be on the street or in the park, and she’ll becaught by an outfit, or theway someone has styled their hair.“It’s difficult to explain – there has to be something thatmakesyou look a bit longer,” she says. She scans the faces surroundingher and shrugs. “I just have to like looking at them, in away.”The exhibition, her first in theUK since 2010, provides

visitors with plenty of opportunity to come upwith their own


“It’s a very open-minded gaze,” she observes. “If it’s a gypsyor an aristocrat, you always feel it’s the same approach. Thesame dignity.” Is she attempting something similar? She nods.“I’m interested in people’s strengths,maybe also their nobility.Imean, it has to be truthful and honest as well,” she adds.It’s an interesting point. Some of her images, in particular the

beach ones shot in the 1990s, feel raw, almost exposing; wouldshe be able to take them today? She isn’t sure, but perhapsnot. “If you compare it to 20 years ago, 30 years ago, peoplearemore suspicious. They don’t knowwhatwill happen to thepicture.Will it be put on the internet?Will it be bad forme?”Sometimes there’s a sense of danger in these images,

I say, a battle of wills between photographer and subject.Dijkstra smiles: although she works carefully to build trust,sometimes over years, she’s the one in charge. “I decide whenthe picture is good. If they were choosing, they would look fordifferent things.”Dijkstra’s aren’t the only portraits to feature in the new show.

Also included is arguably themost famous group shot in arthistory, Rembrandt’s “TheNightWatch” (1642) – albeit seenaslant, via a three-screen videoworkDijkstra filmed at theRijksmuseum inAmsterdam. In it, groups of people stand infront of the painting and discuss it. Schoolchildren coo over thecute dog in the foreground; Japanese businessmen debate thepainter’s profitmargin. Twentysomethings flirt whilewranglingover its symbolism.For Dijkstra, this is a way not only of facing up to

Rembrandt, but an exploration of what portraits are reallyabout.We’re looking at people looking at people; a nicecircularity, she reflects, and a testament to the power andmystery of the form. “With Rembrandt, it feels so real,”she sighs. “I can only be jealous.”

“RinekeDijkstra” is at the MarianGoodmanGallery, London,fromMarch 12 toApril 25;mariangoodman.com

‘Night Watching’, Dijkstra’s 2019 video installation of people looking at Rembrandt’s ‘The Night Watch’

‘The Grandchildren of Denise Saul, New York, October 15 2012’

©RINEK

EDIJKSTR

A.C

OURTE

SYOFTH

EARTISTANDMARIANGOODMANGALL

ERYNEW

YORK,P

ARIS

ANDLO

NDON

WASTE NOThe kitchen at Silo.Facing page: jars of garum seasoning


Silo claims to be theworld’s first zero-wasterestaurant. But, asksTim Hayward, can foodbe both sustainable anddelicious? Photographsby Jasper Fry

35

“Important” restaurantshavesomething in common – they askquestions. FerranAdrià at El Bulliasked: “What if we ignored thetired rules of cooking andusedscience?”HestonBlumenthalat TheFatDuck took it further,asking: “What if we expanded theexperience into all the senses?”RenéRedzepi atNomaasks: “Whatif we focus intensely on the local andseasonal?” For FergusHendersonat St John, it is: “What if we use thewhole beast?” If questions are thesign, then Silomightwell be anImportant Restaurant.Recently relocated from

Brighton to a canalsidewarehouseinHackneyWick in London, Silohas the scale and gravity of a placeofworship, though I doubt theywould be comfortablewith thecomparison. It’s post-industrialand gritty too. Everything the dinersees or interactswith is somehowrecycled or reusedmaterial, from

NOT…

chairs to plates, but there’s nosense of any scrappy “make doandmend”. The interior is byNinaWoodcroft ofNina+Co, adesigner renowned for her focuson sustainability. The iron-beamedroof is hungwith scarlet netsholding slabs of feltedwool, forminga sort of industrial cloudscape thatinsulates the space and absorbssound. The tables aremade bylocal craftsman JanHendzel fromsustainable ash,with tops ofrecycled plastic packaging. Theywould not look out of place in adesignmuseumor aModernistcathedral. Someof the stools andtables in the bar area are grownrather thanmade –mycelium,the vegetative part of a fungus, istrained intomoulds, then bakedto harden into a lightweight foam-like structure that is hard-wearing,robust and fully compostable.DougMcMaster, the chef-

patron, takes us through the prep

kitchen.Miso, shiso, kombuchaand ferments and cultureswithoutformal names quietly go about theirbusiness in demijohns andwoodentrays. There is no plastic wrap to beseen.Wine comes from a vintnera little further up the canal, whodecants from large tanks intoreusable bottles.McMaster opensa large fridge to reveal a stack ofbranded plastic pots of crabmeat.These, he explains, arrived froma supplier thatmorning, not inthe large container the restaurantsupplies, but in the producer’s own,branded single-use tubs. Theywillall be sent back.He explains, witha kind of weary regret, how oftenzerowaste canmean “refusing”before considering “reusing”or “recycling”.We emerge from the backstage

spaces into the kitchen, built ina V-shape, pushing out into thedining area like the prow of a ship.Everything here takes place infull sight of guests,many of whomsit at the counter, talking to thechefs as they explain their cookingprocesses.McMaster can take acentral position and effectivelyoversee every station, a designfeature, he sheepishly admits,he nicked froman Imperial StarDestroyer. There is a small fire pitand several induction slabs set intocounters, but this is clearly a verywell-policed tubs-and-tweezersenvironment – hushed, controlledand reverent; not loud, clashing,kinetic and aggressive.There is nothing in the kitchens

or public spaces that reinforces anystereotype of shambolic hippiedom.In fact, there ismore thatreferences the tropes of fine-diningrestaurants. Yet everything, everytiny detail is entirely on-message,and thatmessage is zerowaste.McMaster is compact, calmand

intense.He speaks directly butwithout arrogance. There’s little▶


36

From top left:beetroot ‘prune’with walnut milkand walnut butter;pumpkin ice creamwith Yorkshirerhubarb; the diningroom at Silo

◀of the easy self-assurance taughtand validated by formal education.He’s profoundly dyslexic and, by hisown description, “failed miserablyin school, miserably”, leaving at16 and entering the brigade at thetwo-star Winteringham Fieldsin Scunthorpe. It was, he says“everything that a two-Michelin starrestaurant was 15 years ago. Crazyhours, aggressive chefs… it wasviolent, physically and mentally.”

Despite this, “I fell in love withkitchens. It was a sort of pirateship... There were rules but alsoanarchy and chaos, which I findvery appealing.

“I never really fell in love withfood. I don’t love it, it’s so stressful.The pressure I put on myself is sohigh that if it’s not anything butbrilliant, then I beat myself upabout it. And I don’t sleep. AndI just obsess over how to make itbrilliant, constantly. I don’t enjoycooking because it’s not fun… notfun for me.”

It’s strange to meet a chef thatdoesn’t want to reduce every partof the conversation to the food, butMcMaster makes his ideas seembigger than the plate.

“My vision, core to Silo, is towork with nature,” he says. “I feellike this is coming from an artisticplace, actually. I don’t necessarilyreally think that I’m changing theworld. I just think, as a directionof my life, if I’m going to createsome kind of meaning, I’m goingto follow this premonition abouta zero-waste restaurant.

“Maybe other people won’t get it,other people think I’m wrong, andthat’s fine. But I feel like this is agood idea and I’m doing it because I

really believe that it’s the right thingto do… I just have this sort of urge,this… thing.”

I am used to chefs withpretensions to be artists, but I don’tthink I have ever encounteredone with a more nuancedunderstanding of what that mightmean in terms of self-expressionrather than mercurial behaviourand temper tantrums.

“My dad was a really brilliantartist and he always talked aboutexpression, about certain thingsin the world that are beautiful andneed to be expressed. I just havethis sort of way of seeing things andI have to express it. It’s like an itch.”

We talk for ages but, unusuallyfor an interview with a chef, wedon’t have food in front of us:a zero-waste operation can’t justwhip up dishes at the whim of ajournalist – and the conversation isabout so much more than food.

As a result, I have to comeback to experiencethe whole thing. In theevening, the restaurant isfull. The crowd is mixed,but skews towards well-heeled bohemians seekinga proper night out.

The meal consists of a standardset menu at £50. It is neithervegetarian nor vegan by designbut often turns out that way. Themenu is projected on the endwall of the dining room, withinthe ghost of an old arch in thebrickwork. The effect is cinematic.First is a slice of mushroom stem,lightly cross-hatched and curedlike a greyish scallop and dressedwith oil and a pheasant glaze.

The dressing brings flavour, themushroom texture and, thoughit’s gone in a single bite, it liveslong on the tongue. It is refined,self-assured cooking, and you needto remind yourself that it was builtfrom offcuts.

Next up is a brown crabemulsion, again pointedly featuringthe portion of the crabmeatcustomarily discarded in upscalecookery. It is dark, bassy and funky,silk-smooth and counterpointedcleverly with fermented rhubarb –all sharp sourness and brightcolour. There’s pooling, greenpea shoyu, dressing a quarter of agem lettuce that’s been brined forthree hours. Between some of theingredients lurk little domes oflemon gel. “We wouldn’t usuallyuse lemons,” the server confides,“but the bar downstairs waschucking out tons of squeezed-outlemon skins.”

A single Jerusalem artichoke,peeled and poached in a low-temperature brine, is served withthe skin fermented into a delicatelittle kimchi with a homeopathicquantity of chilli and resting in apool of brown butter and tamari –the “angel’s share” liquid skimmedfrom the top of the restaurant’sown miso.

The miso is made from offcutsand crusts of the restaurant’s ownin-house bread (7 per cent salt, 7per cent koji; soaked then left forthree months) and appears in thenext course under a smoked firapple potato topped with slicesof red apple and surrounded by asauce of whey, from cheesemaking,reduced to a 50th.

There’s a coherence to thethinking behind every courseand the narrative they present in

FT.COM/MAGAZINE MARCH 7/8 2020

‘Maybe other peoplewon’t get it [or]think I’m wrong, andthat’s fine. But I feellike this is a goodidea and I’m doingit because I reallybelieve that it’s theright thing to do’Chef Doug McMaster (left)

Thepiece onmyplate is takenfroma cut that is not easy tolove, even on a premiumbeast.Themuscles between the ribs arehard-worked, coarse-texturedandheavily striatedwith collagen.McMaster braises it for ages, as hemust to render it edible, andfinishesit in a searing hot oven, butwhat heproduces is not an ordinary piece ofsteak. Rather, it is a piece ofmeat inwhich you can’t escape the story. Ithas a texture unlike anything elseandwhat flavour it still contains isbrilliantly reanimatedwith a sharpglaze and a crust of black and cubebpepperwith a hint of caraway and achiffonade of three-cornered garlic.He hasn’tmagicallymade a juicypiece of fillet out of a knackeredbeast; instead he useswastemeatandmakes it delicious. And thatraises complicated questions.

What aremy criteria for quality?What if they are baseless?

There were two desserts forme to taste. Both were ice creams.The first – served with a sesameseed tuile and a dulce de lechemadeof discardedwhey – was madefrom leftover pumpkin seeds,carefully toasted, and tasted “justlike pistachio”, the dessert chefexplained. The secondwas designedto emulate the flavours of tropicalfruits that might otherwise requireunsustainable transport. There wasa topping of fermented rhubarband the ice cream, made fromfermented pumpkin skins, tastedremarkably like mango.

McMaster is utterly sure ofhis philosophy and his crew aredrenched in the ethos, but thesedishes are where the rubber hits theroad. There are two kinds of diners,

those who take pleasure from theknowledge they are engaging insomething important and that thepistachio and mango flavours areincredibly accurate for somethingmade from waste, and those whowill ask: “What’s wrongwith areal mango?”

What is truly impressive aboutMcMaster is how little of a damn hegives. He doesn’t have an activist’sdesire to change people’s minds.He has, instead, the artist’s driveto express what he believes. If thattroubles people, it’s fine. If theychange their behaviour as a result,that’s a bonus.

Restaurants are about morethan food. They are about theenvironment, the ethos, theaudience. McMaster is about morethan food too, he’s about a biggeridea. It’s a blessing, then, that he’s aan excellent chef with a superb crewso he can express that bigger ideathrough a successful restaurant.

You leave most importantrestaurants with your questionanswered. If the question Silois asking is: “Can a fine-diningrestaurant be zero waste andsucceed?”, then the answer isemphatically yes.

That experience is both moreand less than a normal night out.Elsewhere, I have paid for thingsthat are, by definition, “rubbish”,yet I have enjoyed them morethan I thought I could. Here, I wasdelighted and I left troubled. In astrange way, I think that’s exactlywhat Doug McMaster intends.

TimHayward is winner of theRestaurantWriting Award at theGuild of FoodWriters Awards 2019

combination. You just can’t misshow the by-products and trimmingsof each component recur in otherdishes. These are clever ideas,executed in the idiom of fine diningand creditable, as such, in everysense. But it’s the final courses thattruly provoke thought.

The “main” is a piece ofintercostal muscle from a seven-year-old milker, on a purée ofparsnips cooked in beef fat.In Argentina, Spain and Italy, olderworking animals are treasured fortheir well-muscled flesh. In the UK,we usually go for younger animals,bred for meat, carefully butcheredand aged. At seven years old, havingoutlived its productive life, a Britishdairy cow customarily goes to petfood or pie filling. And its slaughteris one of the most egregiousexamples of food waste.

FT.COM/MAGAZINE MARCH 7/8 2020


We brought a batch ofthese cookies whenvisiting our friendsand their very youngchild. The boy hasbeen peanut buttercrazy since his mumintroduced him to the

stuff in the car park of the Royal Free Hospital.That’s where she gave him a taste while keeping awatchful eye out for any allergic reaction. Instead,the boy gurgled with joy, reached out his chubbyarms for the jar and has been trying to get to itever since.

In Israel, peanut allergy is relatively rare,which is often attributed to a ubiquitous snackcalled Bamba, made of puffed peanut butter.Rich and easy for small mouths to suck on,Israeli babies have been fed Bamba as one of theirfirst solid foods for generations.

For those of us lucky enough to be able to eatit, peanut butter holds an ageless appeal: it hasthe magic ability to make you feel like a child,whatever your age. It’s something about that richfudginess sticking to the roof of your mouth andits earthy, nutty taste – both savoury and sweet atthe same time.

These cookies contain a sprinkle of saltand a good measure of white chocolate, nuttywholemeal flour for flavour and crumb, and somewhole peanuts for extra crunch. Whether withcoffee at the end of a grown-up meal or just a coldglass of milk in the afternoon, peanut lovers of allages will be satisfied.

Peanutbuttercookies

Smartcookies

By Itamar Srulovich. Recipe by Sarit [email protected]

Tomake 20-24 cookies,depending on your piping

• 70g natural peanutbutter (no addedsugar or oil)• 200g white chocolate,chopped• 180g dark brown sugar• 2 eggs• 140g strongwholemeal flour• ½ tsp baking powder• 50g peeled peanuts• 50g white chocolate,chopped• Small sprinkle of sea salt

1—Place the peanutbutter and whitechocolate in a smallsaucepan on a very lowheat and stir until they aremelted and combined.

2—Meanwhile, mixthe sugar with theeggs and whisk with anelectric mixer to a verystrong, fluffy sabayon.

3— Fold the meltedchocolate into the eggmix and add the flourand the baking powder.Mix well to combine.Transfer to a piping bagand rest for 20minutesbefore piping out littlemounds about 5cm indiameter, spaced outacross a couple of linedtrays (they will spread).

4— Top eachmoundwith a couple ofpeanuts, a few chunks ofchopped chocolate anda sprinkle of sea salt.

5—Rest for another20minutes.

6—Heat an oven to180C (fan assist) andbake for six minutes.

7—Rotate the tray in theoven and bake for anotherfour minutes – theyshould form a nice shinycrust all over. Removeand let them cool on thetrays before eating.

38

Photographs by Patricia Niven



With their subregions, whether official or not, and alcoholic strengths

• Cadus, Finca Viña Vida2014 Los Chacayes 14.5%• Catena Zapata, AdriannaVineyard, Fortuna Terrae2016 Gualtallary 14.3%• Cheval des Andes2016 Las Compuertas/Pajare Altamira 14%• Colomé, Estate 2018Upper CalchaquíValley 14.5%• Cuvelier Los Andes 2017Vista Flores 14.5%• DiamAndes 2015 VistaFlores 14.5% (with 25%Cabernet Sauvignon)• Dominio del Plata,Nosotros Sofita 2015Los Chacayes 14.5%(with 20% Petit Verdot)

• Estancia Los Cardones2018 Tolombon 14% (with10% other varieties)• Fabre MontmayouGran Reserva 2017Vistalba 14.5%• LUI, Gran Reserva 2017Gualtallary 14.2%• Manos Negras, StoneSoil 2018 PajareAltamira 13.5%• Mendel, Finca Remota2017 Pajare Altamira 14.5%• Michelini i Muffato,La Cautiva 2017Gualtallary 13.8%• Nieto Senetiner,Don Nicanor SingleVineyard Villa Blanca2015 Vistalba 15%

• PerSe, Jubileus 2017Gualtallary 14%• Piedra Negra, GranMalbec 2014 LasChacayes 14.5%• Trapiche, TerroirSeries Finca Coletto2015 El Peral 14.1%• Tres 14, Imperfecto 2016Gualtallary 14% (with3% Cabernet Franc)• Trivento, Eolo 2016Lujan de Cuyo 14.5%• Zuccardi, Concreto 2018Paraje Altamira 14%

Having just returned frommyfirst trip in five yearstoArgentina, theworld’sfifth biggestwine producer,

it strikesme thatArgentinewineproducers are very, very good atmany aspects ofwine productionand very, very bad at one.

GOODTerroir consciousnessThis is allthe rage. Argentinewine producersused to be obsessed byheight,boasting on labels about howmanymetres up theAndean foothills theirvineyardswere. Today, the focusseems to be on soil – especially inthe highUcoValley,where all thenewer plantings have takenplace.Currently, the valley is being

carvedup intoofficial sub-regions, orIGs (indicación geográfica), accordingto their soil type and geology. It is afraught process, not least becausethe names of the twomost obviousIG candidates, Altamira andGualtallary, havebeen trademarked.Forwhat is now the carefully namedIGPajareAltamira, they havemanaged to establish theboundariesof the alluvial fan at 900m to1,200m(500m is traditionallyconsidered the highest viablealtitude for European vineyards).But because of competing claims,

the process has been so difficultthat they have not succeeded indoing the same for evenhigher andmore extensiveGualtallary,whosereputation for nervy, finely chiselledwines is already sowell establishedthatmanyproducers put the nameon their labels even though it hasno official status. Asmany as fivedifferent IGswithinGualtallaryare being discussed,with third-generationwinemaker SebastiánZuccardi a passionate proponentof this quest for appellations.Zuccardi admits that this isway

ahead ofwhatmost consumers areasking for and that “itwill takemorethan one generation. Eventually,therewill probably be just three orfour IGs that becomeknownoutsideArgentina. But, in them, some

producerswillmakewines thatwillelevateArgentina’s image overall.”CertainlyArgentina – or at least

theUcoValley – seems to be streetsahead ofmost other non-Europeanwine regions in its efforts to labelterroirwith real precision.

New-waveMalbecThis goes handin handwith the generalmoveuphill. Formanywine drinkers,ArgentineMalbec is seen as abig, brash, sweetish, often oaky,bargain variant on stereotypicalNapaCabernet. And thatmaywellbewhatmany consumerswant itto be. But the country’s new-wavewine producers have differentideas. Nowadays, their perfectMalbec expresses terroir (see

above), is fresh (picked earlier) andtextured rather than oaky (oftenmade in concrete not oak) even ifalcohol levels are relatively high.Imust say Iwas amazed byhow

Malbec-centric theArgentinewineindustry is.Malbecmay representjust 22 per cent of the country’s215,000ha of vineyard but it seemsto constitute the vastmajorityof bottledwines on themarket.Argentine consumerswill paymoreforMalbec than anything else.Exporters have enjoyed balmy

times, thanks toUSdemand, butthere are signs thatmaybe over.SouthAmerican specialist importerBrazosWine in California, forexample, is nowaskingArgentinesuppliers for “anything butMalbec”.Blends – both red andwhite –seem increasingly popular.

OthervarietiesOne alternative toMalbec could be Cabernet Franc.Just as theMalbec grape seems somuchmore delicious, varied and▶

Recommended newwave Argentine Malbecs

‘Argentine wine producersused to be obsessed byheight but now the focusseems to be on soil’

Argentina –mainly excellent

JancisRobinsonWine

Tasting notes onJancisRobinson.com.International stockistson Wine-searcher.com

As imagined by Leon Edler


◀ sumptuouswhen ripened in theAndean foothills than in Cahors, itshomeland – theArgentines claimtheir plantmaterial ismuch olderand better quality – so does thesignature red grape of the Loire.While there are also good

Cabernet Sauvignons, the bestCabernetFrancs combineArgentineripenesswith the sort of beautifullyhaunting fragrance I always seekin Loire reds, too often in vain.Meanwhile, Argentine

Petit Verdot reaches qualitativeheights with a consistencythat would be the envy of anyMédoc château owner.

OldvinesAnother of Argentina’sunusual attributes is its stock of oldvines: nearly 30 per cent of vinesaremore than 40 years old. It is notthe only countrywhere ambitious,youngerwine producers are seekingout old, sometimes unwanted, vineswithwhich tomake their name.The same is true in California,Australia, Chile and SouthAfrica.But Argentina is unusual in thescope of its official records. INTA(InstitutoNacional de TecnologíaAgropecuaria) not only lists everyvineyardwith varieties and dates ofplanting, it also oversees a nurseryof asmany as 700 different grapevarieties,most of thembasedon 19th-century plantmaterial,which could help expand theworld’s viticultural biodiversity.

LabellingWhen I first visitedArgentina in the early 1990s,thewineswere pretty bad – toooften oxidised syrups – and the

labels evenworse. Today therearemyriad clever, eye-catchingdesigns andwitty names.

TourismHuge investment inwine tourismhas led to a range ofstylish accommodation, oftenwithbreathtaking views of theAndes.And it can seemas if everywineryhas its own restaurant. This isdespite the fact that, to reach them,youhave to drive formiles on thebumpiest roads and get past theinevitably obstructive gatekeeper.

BADBottlesUnfortunately, Argentinewine producers don’t seemtohave got thememoabouthowbad thick, heavy bottlesare for the environment.Thismight be because theirmain

exportmarket is theUS,wheresome importers regard a heavybottle as an essential part of thepackage. (I heardmore than oncethat it is American importers anddistributors rather than consumerswho are demanding them.) It isall themore regrettable since somanyArgentinewine producersimport fancy bottles fromEurope.I hope they can agree to use thestandard, lighter bottles producedinArgentina. Labels are so goodthese days that they can surelyoffer sufficient differentiation.But perhaps that’s hypocritical,

coming from someonewhotook a long flight in order tomake such observations.

More columns at ft.com/jancis-robinson

I was born and raised in Cosenza in southern Italy, where my two bigpassions were playing football and making food. Whenever I return home,these are the places I go back to time after time.

—Ristorante Agorà is run by Michele Rizzo, who was a protégé of minemany years ago. Located in Rende, it is the best fish restaurant inCosenza. The menu changes daily but I would recommend the taglioliniall’aragosta – freshly made pasta with lobster – if they have it.

— Il Vicoletto is a quaint restaurant near Piazza Bilotti, which servestraditional Calabrian food. Notable dishes include baccalà (cod fishcooked in a tomato and olive sauce, above left) and tuna steak withTropea onion. The service is exceptional and so is the wine list. Every timeI go, it feels like I’m at home.

— Tucked behind the duomo, Caffè Renzelli has been run by the samefamily since the early 19th century. For many locals, it’s an institution. It’salso the best place for your morning coffee, postprandial gelato andevening aperitivo.

— You must never visit any Italian town and not sample its best gelato.Here, you will find it at Zorro in the old town. Try the nocciola – it is,without doubt, the best hazelnut gelato in southern Italy.

— For the finest Negroni (above right) in town, go to La Bodega. It’s runby Roberto Gulino, a born-and-bred Calabrian and master of mixology.

Francesco Mazzei is chef-patron of Sartoria on Savile Row, Radici inIslington and Fiume at Battersea Power Station. sartoria-restaurant.co.uk

MY ADDRESSES— COSENZA, CALABRIAFRANCESCO MAZZEI, CHEF

‘I have never beento a restaurant thatunderstood itscustomers’ needs soswiftly. No Europeanone can compare’

We arrived outsideSingleThread, innorthern California,hungry, thirsty and

somewhat exhausted – havingspent the day tramping throughthe nearby vineyards.Wewere greeted by a young

man, whowe informed of ourplight. “Well, I guess you are in theright place,” he said.Within fiveminutes of stepping inside, mythirst had been quenched andmyappetite stimulated.The lobby has a view through

a large, open panel of an extremelymodern kitchen. At a counter,a young chef offered us a thinporcelainmug containing a highlyrestorative drinkmadewith grainsand thyme from their garden.Meanwhile, the waiting stafffinished off our table. This showeda high level of thoughtfulnessfrom the owners, Kyle and KatinaConnaughton. It had clearlyfiltered through to all the staff,since neither of the pair was there.I have never been to a restaurant

that understood its customers’needs so swiftly. No European one– evenwith its offer of bread or an

he said, andwewould not have anymeat until the seventh or eighth.Here, however, I would take

issue with the Connaughtonapproach. Not divulging furtherdetails about themenu – for whicheach customer is paying $264plus drinks and service – tilts thebalance of themeal toomuch infavour of the kitchen. It could alsomake choosing wine potentiallyproblematic. Thankfully, assistedby AndrewRastello, SingleThread’snewly appointed wine director,we settled on Anthill FarmsDemuth Pinot Noir 2013 andArnot-Roberts 2015 Syrah, whichcould not have been better.The parfait of guinea fowl

was over-seasoned, but that wasjust a small part of one dish.Enough quibbles. The nextcourse – amberjack sashimi withslices of blood orange and a smallpiece of the belly servedwarmand toppedwith chrysanthemumleaves – was a treat both for theeye and the stomach.Then a pot containing a broad-

beanplantwas brought to our tablewith the explanation that this is thecover crop being used on the farm.Alongside came a chawanmushi, aJapanese egg custard toppedwithDungeness crab, and awrapfilledwithmore crab.Other highlights included a

nabe, a Japanese hotpot dishcontaining pieces of black codwith a caviar sauce laced withkombu; plus our introduction toTimeMachine 1712, a dark sakemade in Japan fromunmilled riceby Englishman Philip Harper,which was servedwith a ducklivermousse. Then our finalsavoury course, an interpretationof tsukemono, Japanese vegetablespreserved in brine, servedalongside a shimmeringlyclear consommé.Our dinner endedwith another

custard (the farmmust have somevery happy chickens), this timeincorporating Okinawa blacksugar and jasmine.According to friends, the

Connaughtons’ focus has becomemore andmore Japanese overtime. SingleThread’s seafood,hospitality and capacity to restorelife in a weary body – the basis ofany restaurant – could not bemore impressive.

amuse-bouche – can compare.I haven’t even encountered thisstyle of service in Japan, themodelfor SingleThread.The Japanese believe that

customers need tomake a transitionfrom the hectic outsideworld tothe inner sanctumof a peacefulrestaurant, and that a neglectedaspect of the restaurateur’s roleis to help themdo so quietly andeffortlessly. At best, it should beachievedwithout guests really beingaware ofwhat is happening to them.Inside the dining room (which

opens on to the kitchen), ourcuriosity was piqued by the largeand beautiful display of food onour table. There were small dishesof Japanese needlefish with anintense wasabi; shallow bowls filledwith finely cut rounds of whiteasparagus; a bowl of superblyseasonedwagyu beef tartare; acauliflower panna cotta toppedwith salmon roe; a small pieceof Japanesemackerel andmuchmore, all served on something likea doll’s exquisite dinner set.Then the rest of the show got

under way. Our waiter describedtheir approach as “kaiseki”in style – that is amulticoursemenu, comprising a range oftextures, colours and appearance.Therewould be 11 courses in total,

SingleThread131 North St, HealdsburgCalifornia 95448singlethreadfarms.com+1 (707) 723-4646

SingleThread,California

More columns at ft.com/lander

A DASHI OF GRILLED BONES. CHEFS AT WORK IN SINGLETHREAD’S KITCHEN. PHOTOGRAPHS BY JOHN TROXELL

Restaurant InsiderNicholas Lander



All the answers hereare linked in someway. Once you’vespotted the link, anyyou didn’t know thefirst time aroundshould become easier.

1. Who foundedthe political partywhich spent moreon press advertisingthan any other atthe 1997 generalelection – and endedup with no seats?

2. Which bandconsisted of ReevesGabrels, Tony FoxSales, Hunt Salesand a very famouslead singer?

3. What was the firstCharles Dickensnovel with a first-person narrator?

4. What’s the commontwo-word phrase fora negative pressureventilator, a commonpiece of medicalequipment in the1940s and 1950s?

5. What word for amovie theatre cameto mean “jukebox”(right) after being

misused in the1949 song “Music!Music! Music!”?

6. What’s the world’smost widely usedweb browser?

7. Who was the Romanequivalent of theGreek god Hermes?

8. Which section ofthe orchestra comesfirst alphabetically?

9. What nicknameis shared by Hamilton,Ontario; Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania; andSheffield (above)in Yorkshire?

10. In 2013, BradleyCooper, Robert DeNiro, Jacki Weaverand JenniferLawrence allreceived Oscaracting nominationsfor which film?

+ =

00

00

1 2 3 4 5 6

7 8

15

20 21

24

11

9

13

17

23

12

10

14

16

22

18

19

25 26

27 28

The Across clues are straightforward, while the Down clues are cryptic.

Who or what do these pictures add up to?

The CrosswordNo 478. Set by Aldhelm

A Round on the Linksby James Walton

The Picture Roundby James Walton

Answers page 10

ACROSS7Of course (9)8 Eerie (5)10 Jolly (6)11 Precious metalsource (8)12 Idiot, dunce (6)14 Strength,stamina (6)16 Cheesemakingby-product (4)17 Window panefixative (5)18 Grasp (4)19 Fleet (6)21 Annual (6)24 Agenda (8)26 Lilt, accent (6)27 Second planetfrom the sun (5)28 Sadness (9)

DOWN1Cover over birdfor the table (5)2 Greed that’sincreased I’d found infinancial district (8)3 Travel smoothlyaround a lake that’sunproductive (6)4 Sell an outdoor sportthat’s on the up (4)5 Tree’s hidden bythe broken protectivedevice (6)6 Called in to badlyfail second languagethat’s funny (9)9 Unconvincingand poor film, say,one leaves (6)13Scruffy Scots potatofor the audience (5)15 Oddball letter (9)17 Starts to panic– Lassa feverepidemic (6)

18Girl took greatstrides and ranquickly (8)20Way to astadium (6)22Optimisticallysomehow beats leaderof tournament (2, 4)23 Search for part ofan antique statue (5)25 Bring in heads ofEurope and restartnegotiations (4)

Solution to Crossword No 477

T R E S P A S S AA E A P A R A Y AS P R O U T A R EA E A R A I A I AP A R T S A N AA L A A A A A G AA A A C O N S E RA F A H A A A A AB U R I A L G R O

I

R E M I S SO A A A T AV E R S A LE A I A L AR N O W NA A A A A AV A T O R YO A E A T AU N D A A A

E

A N A C A A A E AD E P A T A S CA R A N A U A E AD E F E N D E R AA A A R A O A V AP L A Y E R A E V

RC A A A U AH A P P SS A D A T AA N I M U SF A O A R AE N S O N G

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AGES

;DREA

MSTIME

46 FT.COM/MAGAZINE MARCH 7/8 2020ILLUSTRATION BY SHONAGH RAE

[email protected]; @gilliantett

just have someone who looks like you in office –policiesmatter too,” sheadds.More specifically, while Meng is rooted in the

centre of theDemocrats (awing of the party thathas increasingly been associated with corporateinterests), Choi backs the anti-establishment,leftwing policies advocated by progressives suchas Bernie Sanders. She is passionate about theneed to combat income inequality in places such

asQueens, andfight the external developerswhowant to build luxury apartments that threaten tohurt“amajorityofworkingimmigrants[who]areseverely rent-burdened” in thearea. “Witnessingtheburdensofworking-class families likemine iswhy I amrunning for office,” she says.

Choi’s determination may not beenough to propel her to victory;Meng has strong support from themainstream Democratic party inQueens. But it would be foolish toignore her story. For one thing, itshows how people such as AOCare helping to reshape the politicallandscape, making room for newvoices. It also demonstrates thelevel of passion created by Sandersand his ideas, especially among

young people – something that continues to takeestablishmentDemocrats by surprise.Choi’s tale also highlights a wider trend: data

from the Pew Research Center suggests that46 per cent of Democrats identify as liberal, upfrom32percentadecadeago,andtheproportionof non-white voters in the party has leapt from24percenttwodecadesagoto39percentin2017.Choi is not the only progressive challeng-

ing a more centrist Democratic incumbent inNew York; in fact, Melquiades Gagarin, who isof Puerto Rican and Filipino descent, also plansto run against Meng. And Adem Bunkeddeko, acharismatic32-year-oldwhohailsfromafamilyofUgandanwar refugees, is hoping to run in the 9thdistrict. In 2018, Bunkeddeko camewithin 1,100votes of unseating Yvette Clarke, who has repre-sented thedistrict formore thanadecade.“Through this campaign, I am opening up a

door for someone else in the future,” enthusesChoi, who argues that the progressive campaign“is bigger than one person running for a seat”. Assuch,herstoryisinspiring,whateveryourpolitics.TheAmerican dreamcanbe pursued frommanystartingpoints – includinganail salon.

Afew weeks ago, I was sitting inmy local nail bar in Manhattanwhen I noticed a striking posterfor Sandra Choi, a young Korean-Americanwomanwhoishopingtorun for Congress. “My daughter!”the salonownerproudlydeclared,pointingat theposter.Iwasimpressed.NewYorkhasa

vast army of often-ignored immi-grants who toil fiendishly hard inservicejobs.TheChoisareacasein

point:membersof the familyhaveworked in thissalon, often sevendays aweek, for threedecades,ever since they came to theUS fromSouthKorea.For a long time, minorities were significantly

under-represented in America’s political land-scape, though that has gradually been changing.When I arrange to meet Sandra Choi near thesalon, she tells me that within her own commu-nity there was a “cultural understanding... thatyou shouldn’t challenge the status quo”. So thefact thatshehasdecidedtorunforofficeisastrik-ing sign of the times. Indeed, Choi’s story alsosheds light on some of the bigger trends that arechanging themodernDemocratic party.It began when Choi’s parents decided to leave

South Korea in the 1970s to follow the Americandream. They settled in Queens, where Sandrastudied hard at school while, as she grew older,alsoworking shifts to help out. The firstmemberof her family to attend college, she graduatedfromFordhamUniversity with a degree in inter-national studies, then received amasters degreein security policy at Columbia University – animpressive CV that could have seen her jumpinto a lucrativeprivate-sector job (asherparentsdearlywantedher to).But Choi, 32, says, “My generation has differ-

ent dreams from our parents.” She went to workin Detroit, in city development, and supportedprogressive candidates there who ran for office.She then heard that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez(“AOC”),ayoungwomanofPuertoRicandescentborn in the Bronx, was running for Congress inNewYork’s 14thdistrict.TheChoi family hadnever encouraged Sandra

toconsiderpolitics;onthecontrary, theydislikedthe idea. But when AOC unexpectedly won herrace – and teamed up with three other congress-womenofcolourtocreatetheso-called“squad”ofprogressives –Choi felt emboldened.She decided to use her life savings to challenge

the Democratic incumbent, Grace Meng, in hernative district inQueens – and, thismonth, she isscramblingtogetthe5,000signaturesrequiredtoqualify for theballotbytappingher localnetworkin churches, schools andbusinesses.“I have been so inspired by AOC and how the

progressivewomenareall supporting eachother.It’s amazing to see them there, and think that Icould run too,” says Choi, who believes she maybe the first Korean-American woman to standfor Congress inNewYork. “But it’s not enough to

‘Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezhas helped to reshape thepolitical landscape, makingroom formore diverse voices’GILLIAN

TETTPART ING SHOT

FromNewYorknail bars toWashington

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Financial Times 03 7 2020