This episode was modified to correct an inaccuracy in the intro. We said Britain has appointed one of the women interviewed for this story to director of GCHQ. Britain did recently appoint the first woman director of GCHQ, but it wasn’t one of the women interviewed for the story. This week, we return to one of our favourite episodes, to hear about the secret lives of women spies. Our colleague Helen Warrell got exclusive access to the women at the top ranks of Britain’s MI6 agency. For the first...
Jul 07, 2023•31 min
This week, we highlight the winner of the International Booker Prize: the novel ‘Time Shelter.’ Lilah speaks with Bulgarian novelist Georgi Gospodinov, along with his English-language translator, Angela Rodel. The book is a beautifully written and biting critique of the world's recent populist movements. Georgi and Angela let us in on some of the secrets to writing and translating it. -------------- We love hearing from you! You can email us at [email protected] , we’re on Twitter @ftweeke...
Jun 30, 2023•25 min
You may have had this fantasy: quit your job in the big city, move to Napa or Greece, buy a straw hat and make wine. Sales of wine-estate properties have, in fact, been rising across southern Europe for years. But the reality is, owning a vineyard is stressful, volatile and financially precarious, and the FT's Marianna Giusti warns us to avoid it at all costs. Mari's family runs a vineyard in Tuscany, Italy. As the oldest child, she is first in line to inherit it. But she doesn’t want it! This w...
Jun 23, 2023•20 min
Welcome to the final bonus episode in our mini-series on food and drink. This week we are joined by two women who are at the forefront of a movement to elevate Mexican food and drink around the world: chef Pati Jinich and tequila maker Bertha González Nieves. Pati and Bertha were interviewed by the FT’s drinks columnist Alice Lascelles during a live conversation at the US FT Weekend Festival. Pati is a chef on a mission to educate people about the diversity of Mexican food, which she explores on...
Jun 21, 2023•17 min
This week, we're talking about how to have the best summer ever. FT magazine editor Matt Vella joins us, and we go through suggestions from listeners, from putting everything in the freezer to getting your ice-cream truck driver's phone number. We also chat about this summer's cultural highlights, and how you might be better off skipping Beyoncé and going to see a local or second-tier band. -------------- We love hearing from you! You can email us at [email protected] , we’re o...
Jun 16, 2023•24 min
Welcome to the third bonus episode in our mini-series on food and drink. This week, we have a conversation with star chef Dan Barber, live from the recent US FT Weekend Festival. Dan is the chef and co-owner of Blue Hill in Manhattan, as well as Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a two-star Michelin restaurant in upstate New York. He has been a thought leader for almost two decades, and what he wants to talk about most right now are seeds. He says 65% of the world's seed supply is produced by four compan...
Jun 14, 2023•17 min
We want to tell about a new podcast coming soon! On Unhedged, Ethan Wu, Katie Martin and other markets nerds at the Financial Times explain the big ideas behind what’s happening in finance right now. Unhedged launches June 13, you can follow the show here ! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Jun 12, 2023•58 sec
Welcome to the second bonus episode in our mini-series on food and drink. This week, Lilah demystifies wine with sommelier, winemaker and restaurateur André Hueston Mack at his restaurant in central Brooklyn. The wine world has been historically inaccessible, and over the past few decades it's become younger, trendier and even countercultural. André has been at the forefront of this change. He explains how different wines come into fashion, from Georgian wine to Beaujolais. Then, he and Lilah op...
Jun 07, 2023•24 min
This week, we meet the South African gangs stealing copper to survive. When the journalist Monica Mark moved to Johannesburg, she noticed that copper theft was causing disruptions across the country: power went out, trains were cancelled, and her neighbourhood Whatsapp group was livid. She wanted to find out who was behind it. So she tracked down a man who used to be in a copper gang. His story is a unique look at South Africa's current struggles with high unemployment, vast inequality and a glo...
Jun 02, 2023•22 min
Welcome to the first bonus episode in our mini-series on food and drink. Every Wednesday, as we inch closer to summer, we'll host a fun conversation with a different expert. Lilah’s first guest is chef and food writer Tamar Adler. Twelve years ago, Tamar wrote the bestselling book An Everlasting Meal , which shared her philosophy that every meal you make can come from the meal before it. She recently expanded it into The Everlasting Meal Cookbook, an encyclopedia for cooking leftovers, with more...
May 31, 2023•16 min
This week, bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld joins us to talk about romantic comedies. Curtis is a long-time fan of rom-coms – her most recent novel is, in fact, called Romantic Comedy . She loves love. But she also knows that there’s a difference between how love is portrayed in TV and movies, and what it’s like in real life. Curtis speaks with Lilah about the state of romantic comedies today: how they’ve changed, and where they could go next. Don’t forget! Send us your top summer ...
May 26, 2023•20 min
Robert Shrimsley has written a satirical column for the FT for years, and this week we talk through one where he gives advice to his older self. As it turns out, forecasting who you might become is an exercise in recognising who you are now – and coming to terms with your genuine interests and limitations. Then Lilah speaks with Alice Lascelles, the FT’s drinks contributor, about the rise of non-alcoholic beverages. Turns out, making a cocktail that’s non-alcoholic and good is the ultimate chall...
May 19, 2023•21 min
This week, we speak with artist Sheida Soleimani. Soleimani grew up in the American Midwest hearing stories of her parents’ escape from Iran: her father spending years in hiding, her mother imprisoned in solitary confinement. Now, she is using three-dimensional collages to tell their story. And she’s doing it in collaboration with them. -------------- Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us at [email protected] . We’re on Twitter @ftweekendpod , and Lilah is on Instagram a...
May 12, 2023•22 min
This week, we consider what it means to have a good death. As nursing strikes escalate throughout the UK and Ireland, the writer Imogen Savage couldn't help but think of her mother Anne, who spent more than 45 years working in end of life care. Imogen spent her childhood watching Anne help people die comfortably and with dignity. Today, we speak with them both about what they've learned about death, and why we shouldn’t cut corners when it comes to caring for the dying. -------------- Want ...
May 05, 2023•18 min
This weekend, we meet actor Arian Moayed. You may know him as Stewy Hosseini from HBO’s Succession, a scheming private equity shark who loves money and fears no one. He's also currently in A Doll's House on Broadway opposite Jessica Chastain, playing Torvald Helmer, one of theatre history's most famous chauvinists. He talks to Lilah about the difference between a trope bad guy and a complicated person, and how to play unlikeable characters as fully formed people. Arian and his family fled from I...
Apr 28, 2023•26 min
This week, Lilah speaks to Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, whose new show Plays for the Plague Year asks us to remember, process and grieve the pandemic. Suzan-Lori is best known for her 2001 play Topdog/Underdog , which was reprised on Broadway in the autumn. But her new show is different: she wrote one short play a day through the pandemic, and collected them into a lively, music-filled theatrical event. Suzan-Lori and Lilah talk through big questions: when is the right tim...
Apr 21, 2023•26 min
There’s been a lot of big finance and economics news in 2023. Whether it's stories about rising interest rates, tech industry layoffs or bank runs, it can almost feel like you need an MBA just to make sense of it all. That’s why the Financial Times is launching a bonus series called Behind the Money: Night School. Over the next five weeks, this show will help you understand the concepts behind the biggest economic stories of this year. U.S. managing editor Peter Spiegel chats with FT journ...
Apr 19, 2023•1 min
This week, we go to a racetrack in Miami, Florida to drink some beers, place some bets, and discover how AI is changing the sport of horse racing. FT data journalist Oliver Roeder joins Lilah to talk about how the ancient sport is being upended by anonymous computer-assisted bets. These secretive gamblers are injecting billions of dollars into the pools, and aggressively tipping the odds, and it’s putting the whole sport at risk. -------------- Want to say hi? We love hearing from you. Email us ...
Apr 14, 2023•23 min
This week, we talk tequila. Over the last 20 years, it has become wildly popular, celebrity-endorsed, and top-shelf. Tequila and mezcal are the fastest-growing spirit category in the US; this year, they are set to overtake vodka as the country's best-selling spirit. But the impact on local Mexican farmers and distillers has been damaging, and demand is outpacing supply. Ivy Mix, author of Spirits of Latin America and owner of respected Brooklyn bar Leyenda, talks us through what's at risk – and ...
Apr 08, 2023•25 min
This weekend, we bring you a conversation with actor Michael Patrick Thornton, who is currently in a buzzy Broadway production of A Doll's House alongside Jessica Chastain. When Michael was 24, he had a series of spinal cord strokes. Reciting Shakespeare's sonnets taught him how to breathe and speak again, and continue his career. Michael is at present the only actor on Broadway who uses a wheelchair . The interview was recorded a few months ago, while Michael was on stage in Macbeth with Daniel...
Apr 01, 2023•33 min
This week, Lilah compares notes on interviewing with podcaster Sam Fragoso. Sam's show Talk Easy features in-depth conversations with some of the biggest names in culture: from Cate Blanchett and Judd Apatow, to Noam Chomsky. He tells Lilah about his highlights and difficult moments, and they discuss what makes a great conversation. Then, we challenged listeners to submit boring topics for us to make interesting, and this week we take on the UK citizenship test. To become a British citizen, you ...
Mar 27, 2023•27 min
This week, we host a writer and an editor in conversation. Booker-winning novelist and poet Ben Okri and outgoing FT Weekend editor Alec Russell meet in the studio on Alec’s last day in the role. They reflect on the political power of poetry, what fiction and non-fiction can teach each other, and the vital role of art. Then, we meet one of London’s most notorious and prolific graffiti writers. His name is 10 Foot, and his tag is famous, but he’s anonymous. Journalist Miles Ellingham spent months...
Mar 17, 2023•32 min
This week Lilah speaks with author Elif Batuman about rethinking Russian literature given Russia’s war in Ukraine. Since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022, cultural institutions have grappled with what to do about Russian artists and works of art. Should they be banned if we want to support Ukraine? Elif talks us through the literary dimension of the debate. And she says go ahead, read the Russian classics. But learn about the history and culture of the time as you’re doing it. Then...
Mar 10, 2023•30 min
This week Lilah goes to Savannah, Georgia, to visit chef Mashama Bailey. In 2022, Mashama won Outstanding Chef at the James Beard Awards. Since 2014, she has been chef and partner at The Grey, a restaurant located in a formerly segregated bus station. And she has been redefining American food by reclaiming its African-American roots. But because so much of this history hasn't been documented, how do you find and preserve it, and also expand on it? Mashama explains her creative process. We also s...
Mar 03, 2023•31 min
This week marks a year since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. In this episode, Lilah speaks with Ukrainian director Nadia Parfan, whose documentary short 'I did not want to make a war film' is a first-person essay about how life has changed. Nadia was in Egypt when the war began, but a few weeks later, she chose to return to Ukraine because she feared isolation more than physical danger. She joins us from a coffee shop in Kyiv to talk about making the film, what life is like in Ukraine f...
Feb 24, 2023•20 min
This week, we speak with visual artist Nick Cave. Cave is best known for his ‘Soundsuits’: vibrant, whimsical costumes that entirely cover the face and body. But the Soundsuits are not just playful. He made the first after police beat Rodney King in 1991, and they are meant to help process collective sorrow through celebration, and to give armour to the marginalized. In the wake of police killing Tyre Nichols last month, we speak with Nick about how his work has changed over 30 years, even as hi...
Feb 17, 2023•32 min
The announcement that the world’s top restaurant, Noma, will close in 2024, has spawned dozens of think pieces asking whether this is the end of fine dining. So this weekend, we went to the FT’s renowned food critic Tim Hayward to learn about the state of the industry. Running a restaurant has never been more expensive in cities such as New York and London. And now, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, Tim says a bloodbath is coming: in order to stay afloat restauranteurs must ditch a corpo...
Feb 10, 2023•25 min
This week, we’re joined by Gabrielle Zevin, author of the novel ‘ Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow ’. One of last year's bestsellers, it traces the lives of two friends, Sam and Sadie, who meet as kids and become world famous video game creators. Gabrielle tells Lilah why she focused on games, and how video games from Pac-Man to Mario influenced a generation of people. Then, we learn about a Rolex watch ‘grey market’ with Jeff Maysh. Try to buy a Rolex – you're unlikely to find one on the sh...
Feb 03, 2023•25 min
The Oscar nominations have been announced. This weekend, we revisit two of our interviews from last year, with filmmakers behind two of the most nominated films: Daniel Kwan and Daniel Scheinert, who directed ‘Everything Everywhere All at Once ’, and Ruben Östlund, director of ‘Triangle of Sadness ’. Both are nominated for best director and best picture, and both are unexpected: 'Everything Everywhere All at Once' is praised for combining genres from indie comedy to sci-fi to kung fu. 'Triangle ...
Jan 27, 2023•33 min
This weekend, the FT's Claire Bushey asks a question that sounds poetic but is actually entirely unsentimental: how much is my life worth? In 2021, Claire learned she had breast cancer. The cost of her treatment points us to how, exactly, the US healthcare system is broken. Then, Lilah takes on Prince Harry's autobiography Spare with chief features writer Henry Mance. After so much Harry and Meghan content, what can we possibly still learn? ------- We love hearing from you! Fill in our feedback ...
Jan 20, 2023•30 min
