22 February/23 February 2020 ★ FTWeekend 17Ablaze but not consumed,
the burning bush described
in the Book of Exodus has
long been understood as a
symbol of inspiration and
persistence in the face of
oppression. Today Pieter
Hugo’s image of flames
evokes human failure as
much as it does an act of
God, with temperatures in
Mexico rising to
unprecedented levels and
wildfires so widespread that
the smoke from them was
captured on Nasa satellite
imagery last year.
Resilience — spiritual or
otherwise — is at the heart
of the South African
photographer’s latest
exhibition,La Cucaracha.
The title refers to a popular
folk song in whose refrain a
cockroach struggles on
without its two hind legs.
But the verses have no fixed
lyrics; they are as varied as
Hugo’s portraits of Mexico,
telling the stories of everyday
ritual and resistance that
have come to define the
country.
Chris Allnutt‘Pieter Hugo: La Cucaracha’ is
showing at Huxley-Parlour
Gallery, London, to March 14SNAPSHOT
I
went out for a meal with friends
last week and knew exactly what
I was going to order before I even
got to the restaurant. Not because
I had been before, but because I
had already studied the menu online
before I left work. When it came to
ordering, there was much dithering
from three of my friends, but a fourth
knew immediately that she’d have the
cauliflower shawarma. “I looked at the
menu earlier today,” she said proudly,
“I couldn’t resist.” I felt a warm wave of
complicity. A fellow planner.
We are in the peak booking months
for the summer holidays, yet many of
you won’t even have turned your
thoughts to Easter. I, however, am
already wondering if the booking
period for sleeper trains to Scotland on
December 23 is open. And mulling over
February half-term 2021.
It’s not so much about prices
escalating — but boy, do they escalate.
I get genuine pleasure from researching
every element of my trip, right down to
the last cappuccino. And thanks to the
recent proliferation of travel-booking
and travel-inspo websites, not to
mention my Instagram feed, my desire
for a meticulously planned holiday is
constantly refuelled.
To me, a large part of the wonder of
travel is imagining it all in advance —
projecting yourself into that piazza, a
steaming bowl of Rome’s bestcacio e
pepein front of you.In fact, avoiding
disappointment is what it is all about.
On my first trip to the eternal city, I
took a chance on a touristy restaurant
next to the Trevi Fountain. Rookie
error: the spaghetti napoli definitely
came out of a tin. That was it, I decided
at the time, leaving things to chance
was henceforth a thing of the past.
Some of you will be nodding in
approval. The rest will either be
thinking that I’m a total control freakor killjoy, because where is the fun in
knowing exactly where you are staying
or eating or visiting? Surely it is better
to wander down that narrow alley,
following that unctuous oniony smell
until you reach that perfect pavement
trattoria that turns out to make its own
spaghetti. But how often does that
actually happen?
In any relationship, there is usually
a planner and a non-planner. I am
married to a confirmed non-planner.
This inevitably leads to a lot of those
“can we just discuss dates for a
moment?” discussions, which I usually
attempt on long car journeys, where
the non-planner is captive. After 15
years together, I have given up trying
to lure my husband into my camp.
I know that I will do the booking offlights, ferries and hotels. But with that,
I am also inevitably the one who gets to
curate our trips — which has its perks.
I know now not to over-plan, as that is
just stressful for everyone: “We need to
get out of the poolnowand get to the
cathedral crypt before midday, kids, as
our lunch reservation is at 12.30 and
the restaurant closes at two”. And of
course planning can go wrong
— (“Scusa signore, but on your menu
three months ago, it said you hadcacio
e pepe.. .”).
It is not necessarily a gendered
divide. I know several couples where
the man is the keeper of the holiday
plans, and the woman is quite happy to
leave him to it. Somehow I always
warm to the planners — kindred spirits— and I have never been more
delighted than when I found out that
my new deputy on FT Globetrotter was
assembling a Google doc of every
element of her road-trip to Scotland.
Confirmation of a very good hire.
At the other end of the scale are
French friends of ours from
Normandy, who literally do not plan
their holidays. The two of them and
their three children pack for a week
of warm weather, get into their car,
and point it wherever the mood takes
them. This could mean a long drive to
the south of France, or it could mean
the Alps, or perhaps a lake somewhere
in la France profonde. No hotels are
booked in advance — they just turn up,
analogue-style, and ask if there is any
room at the inn.
This is, of course, easier if you live
in a country with easy access to good
weather. Yet their open-mindedness
never ceases to amaze me.
My husband recently took a
business trip to Utah. The day before, I
asked him where he was staying. He
didn’t know. I suggested that he search
some blogs about cool places to eat, or
nice cocktail bars. But instead, he took
the Normandy approach. Waking
early, he stumbled out of his hotel and
walked down Main Street, eventually
coming across a hipster café that
wasn’t open yet. He knocked on the
door and they unlocked it for him. In
the dawn light, he had the best flat
white and granola he has ever had in
his life.
For every 10 tinned spaghetti
napolis, there must be a perfect flat
white. It is a difficult ratio to swallow.
Nevertheless, this year I am going to
try to leave things a little more to
serendipity. Although I might just book
that December sleeper train first.Rebecca Rose is editor of FT GlobetrotterConfessions of
a holiday planner
T
ributes to Kobe Bryant after
the basketball star’s death
last month hailed him as a
father, charitable patron,
linguist, recanter of gay
slurs, campaigner, migrant and, of
course, athlete. Except not “of course”.
In much of the world, an “athlete” is
someone who does athletics: a creature
of the track or the field. Their work
entails raw physical output — speed,
power, endurance — with not a ball in
sight to throw or manipulate. Even
when the word expands to include
cyclists, say, or swimmers, it still
denotes people whose gift is aerobic
rather than technical.
Americans’ taste for the word, even
when describing games with a skill
element, might signify nothing.
Or it might suggest that athleticism is
what the culture prizes more highly.
This is one of the abiding theories for
football’s still limited penetration here.
I mean, what an unprepossessing
bunch its players must seem to
followers of the NFL or the NBA.
Lionel Messi is the same height as
Al Pacino. Luka Modric weighs less
than your average Rolling Stone. On
his own, Cesc Fabregas justified my
extortionate Arsenal season ticket in
the later noughties, but there is a good
chance that I could out-sprint him,
even now, in my Neufchâtel-and-
Meursault years. In no major sport bar
cricket is technique worth so much,
and physicality so very little.
American tastes have shifted a bit, of
course, hence football’s gradual rise on
these shores. But much less discussed
is the way in which the sport is meeting
America halfway.At some point in the coming weeks,
Liverpool will win the Premier League
at a frankly indecent canter. Records
for points-accumulation and much else
will have been devastated. Their coach
Jürgen Klopp will have joined the list
of Germans who do their best work in
Britain: not quite a Marx or a Handel,
but dearer to more people than Frank
Auerbach or WG Sebald.
Above all, though, football will have
confirmed its mutation, already years
in train, into a much more athletic
sport. And so, it follows, a more US-
friendly one.
Liverpool are spoilt for skill. But
what makes them something of aninflection point in the history of the
game is their bionic physical output.
Last season, they completed more
sprints than any team in the league.
They “press” — run to reclaim the ball
— with the vehemence and co-
ordination of a Tundra wolf pack.
Their games have something of
basketball’s disorientating speed.
Klopp’s favourite word in his second
language tells you more than any
drone-harvested sports data from
Liverpool’s space-age training centre.
His right-back is a “machine”.
Southampton are a “pressing
machine”. Atlético Madrid, who
subversively beat Liverpool in theChampions League this week, are a
“real, proper machine”.
For all this, Klopp’s players are still
un-American in size. Outside of a few
positions, the greatest footballers are
bendy Nureyevs of around five feet
nine inches. But pace and power are
increasingly selected for, and this trend
(“PnP”) is rampant far beyond
Merseyside.
Whether the Machine Age of football
counts as progress is a matter of taste.
Some of us pine for the languid,
wheezing geniuses of yore, who must
cringe with obsolescence now, as hand-
weavers did when Cartwright’s power
looms started to churn monstrously
into gear. One position on the field, the
number 10, a sort of creative-director
role, with licence to take it easy, is
more or less dead.
But the point here is not what I like.
The point is what the world’s largest
market likes. Readers might know the
old parody of football inThe Simpsons,
where the ball is tapped from side to
side as the crowd roars mystifyingly.
If football is to grow beyond its current
US base, it will have to appeal to those
who turn to sport for feats of athletic
prodigiousness, not glacial craft. It is the
good luck of the sport that this very
trend is in force, with nobody doing
more to accelerate it than Klopp.
Whether or not it is an aesthetic
contribution to the game, it could turn
out to be a commercial one. Liverpool
are putting together perhaps the most
impressive season in the history of any
major European league. The ultimate
legacy might play out a continent away.[email protected]Football will have to
appeal to those seeking
not glacial craft butathletic prodigiousness
Rebecca Rose
Trending
Chess solution 2355:(a) 1 Nf5+! (b) Any black king move allows Rd6 mate, Rd8 mate, or Ng7+ forking king and rook, so Black
had to play Rxf5 2 Kxf5 a4 3 Re2+ Kd7 4 Rd2+ with a draw. (c) Where does the king go, Yasser?Machine football and
the conquest of America
Janan Ganesh
Citizen of nowhere
For every 10 plates of
tinned spaghetti, there’sa perfect flat white. It’s a
difficult ratio to swallowFT Globetrotter, our new series
of insider city guides for business
travellers, officially launched this
week. To celebrate, all FT
Globetrotter content is free toread until February 26. Check out
our new etiquette series in which
correspondents divulge hard-won
tips on how to avoid cultural
mishaps, or our new solo diningseries to transform your next trip.
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@FTGlobetrotterFree to read until 26 Feb: FT Globetrotter, our new digital city guides
‘Burning Bush, Oaxaca de Juárez’ (2018)
by Pieter Hugo
FEBRUARY 22 2020 Section:Weekend Time: 20/2/2020 - 18: 34 User: paul.gould Page Name: WKD17, Part,Page,Edition: WKD, 17 , 1