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There are two types of hard decisions. There are those where, after enough thought, you can arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. And there are those that, however many permutations you explore, you still end up in a bad place. It’s in this second bucket that we find Wimbledon’s decision to ban Russian and Belarusian tennis

Pandora Flower rug by Allegra Hicks, from £1,092 per sq m Individually made by hand, this design can be crafted to any size. allegrahicks.com Leo Rose lampshade by Matthew Williamson for John Lewis, from £40 This collaboration includes a range of different accessories designed by Williamson. johnlewis.com Daisy water jug by Petra Palumbo, £120 Hand

To hold a nutmeg in your hand — a tiny brown globe veined with mysterious patterns — is to be reminded how much our ideas of what is precious can change. This spice (which is actually a seed, not a nut) was once so prestigious that one of the monikers of an 18th-century Persian ruler

I am not a punctual person, so I leave slightly late for dinner. (There is, inevitably, a dispute between my partner Felicity Slater and me about which one of us bears responsibility: I tend to start getting ready first but do so at a very leisurely pace, while she is very efficient but only gets

Once among the fastest ships afloat, the Cutty Sark has been stationary for almost 70 years, dry-docked beside the Thames in Greenwich. It has become one of London’s classic tourist attractions but I was to get a novel view of its teak decks, soaring masts and finely tapered prow. After two years of negotiation, Wire

The beautiful Douro valley in northern Portugal is in a real pickle. It is best known as the home of port, but today an increasing proportion of the vines, which are virtually the Douro valley’s only crop, produce stunning table wine too. But who will tend and pick those vines? And will anyone pay the

Emmanuel Macron likes to take risks. Confronted with anti-vaccination protests during the Covid-19 pandemic, the French president could have backed down as he did in the face of the anti-government gilets jaunes demonstrations three years earlier. Instead he raised the stakes, declaring his wish to “piss off” the unvaccinated and insisting that only the inoculated

As a stockbroker engaged with the unlikely task of promoting Italian equities to international investors in the 80s and 90s, I was lucky enough to have regular conversations with Baillie Gifford’s James Anderson. Perhaps, because of his experience as a student in Bologna, he too enjoyed the virtues of the few promising Italian companies available

Defence stocks have outpaced the global market this year by the most in almost a decade, on expectations of higher military spending by western governments and as ethically minded investors re-evaluate the sector. An MSCI index tracking aerospace and defence shares has beaten a broader gauge of worldwide equities by 17 percentage points in dollar

Among all of the cost pressures racking up for British supermarkets, one of the most persistent and intense is staff wages. Tesco this month became the latest big grocer to increase basic hourly pay rates above £10, higher than both the statutory minimum wage of £9.50 and the voluntary “UK real living wage”. Asda is

Boris Johnson flew back to London from India on Friday, probably wishing he could stay longer in a country where he was greeted by dancers, avenues lined with children waving union jack flags and billboards featuring his ruffled features. “I felt like Sachin Tendulkar,” the UK prime minister said, referring to the Indian cricketing demigod.

Donald Trump appearing to storm out of a world-exclusive interview is just the kind of episode that Piers Morgan needs to attract attention to his show on TalkTV, the UK’s newest television station. That the former US president has claimed its producers doctored the pre-released footage has only added to the buzz surrounding the launch

Reading Gillian Tett’s column, an inquiry into the logic of banning Russian arts in response to war crimes in Ukraine (Magazine, FT Weekend, April 16), there was a missed opportunity to draw upon Julian Barnes’s novel The Noise of Time, the semi-fictionalised account of the trials and tribulations of Dmitri Shostakovich and his perseverance in

Andres Schipani’s report “Culture: Battle to save churches and heritage” (April 16) concludes with the comment of Father Nestor Kyzyk that “without the past we’ll never have a future”. As many as 29 churches and other historic buildings have been damaged or destroyed in Mariupol and Kharkiv. Yet Russia is a signatory to the 1954

In “Moments to change a life” (Life & Arts, April 16) Enuma Okoro’s Easter reflections on the Emmaus story — so timely and timeless — invited us to celebrate good reading, with echoes of Archimedes’ Eureka turning point in a lightbulb moment for Mr and Mrs Cleopas in Saint Luke’s Gospel. Okoro’s optimism, coupled with

As I read Janan Ganesh’s piece “A slap in the face for psychobabble” (Opinion, Life & Arts, April 9), I was probably, like many readers of the FT, racking my brains to pinpoint exactly where, and how much of this gobbledegook I have heard in, say, the last week. In the bank, in the surgery,

The profile of Father Paolo Benanti (“The monk helping the Vatican take on AI”, Magazine, April 9) covered some incredibly important issues concerning the ethics of artificial intelligence. But unmentioned was AI-originated existential risk (AIXR), which is less tangible than bias or inequality, but equally profound. Some scientists and philosophers argue that ever-more-capable AI might

What was your childhood or earliest ambition? To work with animals. The novels of Dick King-Smith had a significant impact on my early life. Private school or state school? University or straight into work? Two different state schools in rural County Cork, both Catholic, then art college in Dublin, specialising in sculpture. I was a

Shell has begun the “nightmare” task of extricating itself from its biggest Russian energy project as China’s state-owned companies line up as the only current option for western oil and gas majors divesting Russian assets that much of the world will not touch. The UK-headquartered group is in “early stage negotiations” with Cnooc, CNPC and

As the Russian delegation prepared to speak at Wednesday’s G20 meeting, finance ministers and central bank governors from the US, EU, UK and Canada got up and walked out. They did not stay to listen to what Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov, who joined virtually, or his deputy Timur Maksimov, who was in the room,