Ageism is rife these days, says Tim Harford in the FT. More than half of managers admit they are not open to employing people over the age of 50, and we tend to assume great talents will “announce themselves early” – think of Tiger Woods winning an under-10s golf tournament at the age of three, or darts prodigy Luke Littler hitting bullseyes as a toddler. “But this is to confuse genius with precocity.” The beloved English poet Wendy Cope was first published at the age of 40; Julia Child’s breakthrough cookery book came out the year she turned 50. At 28, Vincent van Gogh was told: “You are no artist... You started too late.” Almost every one of his masterpieces was painted in his mid-thirties, in the last two years of his short life.

Young prodigies tend to be conceptual artists – people like Pablo Picasso or Bob Dylan, who “reimagined an artistic endeavour and broke through young”. Experimental artists take their time to explore the territory and develop their skills, so peak much later. Think Rembrandt, or Fleetwood Mac. The idea that the “only kind of brilliance is youthful brilliance” is a myth. And it’s not just artists: in most careers we learn from experience, building skills and contacts that “offset the advantages of youth”. This doesn’t just mean deepening knowledge, but experimenting and figuring out what you like and where your talents lie. Van Gogh tried being an art dealer, a teacher, a missionary, a bookshop assistant and a pastor before he started to paint. So it’s absurd to say “you started too late”. We shouldn’t write people off, and “we shouldn’t write ourselves off”.

🏃‍♀️🥉 Last summer, British athletics fans were captivated by the story of Georgia Bell, “a once-promising junior runner” who quit the sport for five years and was working full time in cyber security. After trying out her local 5km Parkrun, she decided to take up running again. At the Paris Olympics, the then 30-year-old took four seconds off her personal best and won bronze in the 1500m.

THE COUNTRY HOUSE Orchard Farmhouse is a seven-bedroom country home in the Norfolk village of Saxlingham Nethergate. On the ground floor is a modern kitchen, a spacious drawing room with a wood-burner, a snug, a utility room and a garden room looking out on to the roughly five acres of grounds. On the first floor are five en-suite bedrooms, one with its own dressing room, while a further two bedrooms are on the second floor. Separate to the main house are a two-bedroom lodge surrounded by a charming walled garden and a studio barn. Norwich is a 30-minute drive. £2.75m.

You’re missing out…

To read the rest of today’s heroes and villains – along with pieces on China’s sexed-up economic figures and why the new Bridget Jones is the best one yet – please take out a subscription.