Lunch With the FT: 52 Classic Interviews
Read Lunch With the FT: 52 Classic Interviews Online
Authors: Lionel Barber
Tags: #General, #Biography & Autobiography
52 Classic Interviews
Edited by Lionel Barber
Foreword by John Ridding
Illustrations by James Ferguson
The Lunches
Shaw-Lan Wang
Domenico Dolce and Stefano Gabbana
Lunch with the
FT
has long been a mainstay of the
Financial Times
weekend section, a consistently entertaining read, and a unique ‘seat at the table’ with the personalities and players who have shaped our times. This book is, therefore, a fitting way to mark the newspaper’s 125th birthday – rekindling memorable moments and reacquainting ourselves with the protagonists from that history.
But these interviews also tell a broader
FT
story. They provide a reminder of some of the guiding beliefs and objectives that have served us well over the years, and will remain at the centre of our publication and our purpose. While many in media and publishing struggle to survive amid the forces of digital disruption, the
FT
remains in strong shape. This is partly because we have embraced digital delivery and innovative web formats. But it is mainly because of our sustained commitment to quality journalism and our confidence in its value and importance to our readers.
That commitment to quality is matched by our dedication to a global perspective. Our international expansion from the
FT
’s UK roots was well under way when our first lunch guest sat across the table in 1994. Since then, our branches have extended and flourished across the US, Asia and the fast-rising economies of the BRICs and beyond.
These portraits chart the evolution and revolutions of global society, which will always be at the heart of the
Financial Times.
John Ridding
CEO,
Financial Times
From the very first mouthful, Lunch with the
FT
was destined to become a permanent fixture in the newspaper. The formula was deceptively simple: a conversation-cum-interview over an agreeable lunch. Since its debut in 1994 there have been more than 800 lunches, featuring presidents, playwrights, tycoons, film-stars, monks and more than the occasional oddball. Lunch with the
FT
has become an institution, as entertaining and enduring as the Lex column.
To celebrate this year’s 125th anniversary of the
Financial Times
, we are publishing 52 of the best of the genre – one for every week of the year. Our list is an international who’s who from the arts, business, politics and science. The selection pays due regard to gender and geography, but above all it seeks to meet the test once set out by Richard Lambert, a former editor of the
Financial Times
. The task of
FT
journalism, he reminded colleagues, is not only to inform but also to delight readers.
Lunch with the
FT
was conceived by Max Wilkinson, a crusty, enterprising editor of the
Weekend FT
with an acute sense of the absurd. He thought the new interview format would provide ‘a ray of sunshine’ in the paper. The rules were straightforward. The guest/interviewee would choose the restaurant, and the
FT
would foot the bill. In fact, the Wilkinson rules were broken on the very first outing.
The
FT
’s first guest on 23 April 1994 was Marco Pierre White, the celebrity chef-cum-restaurateur whom our interviewer (Michael Thompson-Noel) memorably dubbed ‘the wild man of English cooking’. White, who had chosen one of his own restaurants in which to be amply wined and dined, rejected any notion that the
FT
would pick up the tab. The principle that the
FT
pays has otherwise mostly held firm, despite protestations from interviewees. What we view as a declaration of editorial independence has often been taken as a cultural insult or a poor reflection of the guest’s own financial standing. ‘Now I know why the
FT
is so expensive’ was the barbed
quip of billionaire Michael Bloomberg on failing to pick up a $96 bill in New York, where he is now mayor.
The original idea behind Lunch with the
FT
was to rediscover the art of conversation in a convivial setting. Good food was essential, preferably washed down with a decent bottle of wine to elicit insights and the occasional indiscretion. The combination led to some memorable encounters, notably a liquid lunch of biblical proportions at the Café Royal between Nigel Spivey, a Cambridge don and freelance
FT
writer, and Gavin Ewart, the 79-year-old poet. The next day, Spivey received a call from Mrs Ewart, saying that her husband had returned home happier than she had seen him in a long time. ‘The second [thing] – and you are not to feel bad about this – is that he died this morning.’
Less fatal twists of fate feature in this book. In 1996 Jacques Attali, the
enfant terrible
of French intellectual life, announced halfway through lunch in Paris with Lucy Kellaway that he had to leave – to go to a second lunch. Apparently, gastronomic two-timing was de rigueur for Attali. Another mid-lunch upset saw Ronnie Wood, the ageing Rolling Stone, excusing himself from his oysters to take a call from the
Sun
newspaper inquiring about his teenage mistress. But the ultimate
bombe surprise
came from Yuko Tojo, the granddaughter of the Japanese prime minister hanged after the Second World War. She brought his remains to lunch in Tokyo with David Pilling, our Asia editor.
Many lunches in this book show the
FT
at its eclectic best. Naturally, there is star-power aplenty: Angelina Jolie, Michael Caine, Martin Amis and Sean ‘P. Diddy’ Combs, the hip-hopper-cum-business-magnate, who turned up in a Seventh Avenue soup shop in New York. There are statesmen and -women: Václav Havel, the Czech playwright-turned-president and father of the post-communist nation; F. W. de Klerk, who brought about the end of apartheid in South Africa; and Angela Merkel, in a revealing interview in 2003, before she became German chancellor and arguably the most powerful politician in Europe. There are fashionistas such as Tamara Mellon, the founder of Jimmy Choo, as well as a rare luncheon duet with Domenico Dolce and his partner Stefano Gabbana. And there are tales of the unexpected from General Rosso José Serrano, the Colombia police chief who cornered Pablo Escobar before the drug kingpin died in a hail of bullets.
Inevitably, lunch – like the
FT
– has evolved over the 18 years since its inception. In the age of the BlackBerry, the smartphone and still or
sparkling water, the idea of a long boozy lunch is almost quaint. Reluctantly, the
FT
has occasionally accommodated the busy lives of the rich, powerful and self-important by agreeing to a breakfast, tea or the occasional sandwich. But even modest fare can produce scintillating copy. Just read Pilita Clark’s opening exchange with Michael O’Leary, the potty-mouthed boss of the no-frills airline Ryanair.
Today’s lunches reflect the
FT
’s global reach. We have an ABC (Africans, Brazilians, Chinese) of prominent persons which stretches all the way to Z (Zimbabwe’s Morgan Tsvangirai, the battered opposition leader interviewed over sundowners by Alec Russell, formerly the
FT
’s man in Johannesburg).
There are also some excellent interviews which failed to make the cut: Emily Stokes filleting the ambitious author-soldier-politician Rory Stewart at Harvard’s Kennedy School; Paulo Coelho talking about prostitutes and the Pope with fellow author A. N. Wilson; Sean Parker, the tech guru, telling John Gapper in Los Angeles that a million dollars ‘is not cool’; or Roger Waters of Pink Floyd comparing himself to Shakespeare and Woody Guthrie – and ordering a £75 piece of gravadlax.
The job of an editor is, however, to choose. In this case, I would like to thank Lucy Kellaway, a founder luncher and a mistress of the art, as well as Matthew Engel, the
FT
columnist, for his splendid essay on the 18th anniversary of the Lunch published last year (
www.ft.com/lunch
). Leyla Boulton, who co-ordinated this book project with patience and skill, has been indispensable. I am also grateful to James Ferguson, the
FT
’s brilliant cartoonist, whose illustrations have graced Lunch with the
FT
off and on since 2004.
Lionel Barber
Editor,
Financial Times
