At lunch…with an icon
I think I’ve found a new hero. The FT’s Lunch With is mostly always interesting, although many bomb in a format that’s designed to show their humanity and personality.
That is definitely not the case with Lotte Bjerre Knudsen, who sounds like a genius and a hoot in one.
I was somewhat interested in what the creator of the weight loss drugs, or ‘fat jabs’, would have to say about food and diet trends when I saw this headline on the FT’s homepage; when the piece ended, I was sad. The piece is a happy collision of a wonderful writer and a superb subject.
Madhumita Murgia writes Knudsen with so much vivacity. Her opening paragraphs, about Knudsen’s choice of restaurant, the two-star Indian Michelin in Mayfair Gymkhana (the bill comes to £264), are gems, such as when Knudsen tells the waiter her only allergies are to ‘bad food.’
Knusden’s views on food and processed foods and how the human relationship with both might change as a result of her drugs are super interesting. Not overweight herself, the Danish scientist says her early relationship with food was filled with vegetables and flavour thanks to her chef and farmer parents. It is an understanding she hands down, describing her hard years as a mother avoiding takeaways as ‘leadership’ and walking the talk.
The article is very interesting as it charts her groundbreaking research into the GLP-1 hormone and the discovery of the drug. Also fascinating are her views on how unlocking obesity is poised to transform / topple the processed foods industry, as those on the drugs want to eat better foods now they have less of it.
But mostly what I loved about this piece was Murgia’s ability to showcase Knudsen’s dynamic personality. There were some genuine laugh-out-loud lines here, as Knudsen discusses the various appraisals of her personality over the decades of her career.
Plus her workout routine: What. A. Queen.
In her pink suit, with a skinny tie looped around her bare neck and cat-eye glasses, Knudsen knows she isn’t your standard biochemist. In fact, she revels in it. The first time she wore a pink suit was to an awards ceremony in Denmark, where she was surprised by the dozens of comments from women, girls and fathers of daughters inspired by her unapologetic femininity, while also championing science. Since then, it has been her signature public look. ‘There were no female role models when I grew up in science. I had no women to look up to. I had many great male role models, but as a woman you also would like to see someone like yourself be successful,’ she says. She acknowledges that there are some men who dislike her for her larger-than-life personality. ‘But that’s OK. It’s their problem, not mine.’
…
I ask Knudsen if she has tried the drugs she helped create. Yes, of course, she says. A low dose just for a month that made her feel fuller, thirstier and eat less, as expected. She supplemented it, as she has always done, with regular exercise, running twice a week, swimming and lifting weights. If she can’t access any exercise equipment, she does an hour of energetic indoor dancing, usually to Led Zeppelin or her favourite Danish alt-rock band Dizzy Mizz Lizzy.
…
Knudsen acknowledges that part of the reason for her uphill climb was her gender, coupled with the fact that she had not earned a PhD at the time. Despite this, she was never afraid to speak up, something she attributes to the non-hierarchical and open Nordic culture that Novo was steeped in. And, ultimately, her tireless championing of weight-loss drugs did push the company to invest in GLP-1s all the way to the clinic. Knudsen tells me that the former chief executive Lars Rebien Sørensen, under whom the first weight-loss drug of its kind was approved, described her in a newspaper interview as ‘completely insufferable to be around’. It would have been nice to have a heads-up, she says, but she takes this as a compliment.
‘We Have Been Killed’
After decades of repression, Vladimir Putin has finally succeeded in shutting down the last remaining independent Russian media outlet inside Russia — Novaya Gazeta.
They killed us.
On November 9, we will turn off the lights in the home where we have lived for 30 years, shut down our servers, and leave. The newspaper no longer exists. Russian authorities and Russian security services forced the editorial staff to stop working.
…
Attackers assaulted editor-in-chief and Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dmitry Muratov, who nearly lost his eyesight as a result. No criminal case was opened, even though the perpetrators are known.
Then Russian authorities began designating our journalists as foreign agents, starting with the editor-in-chief.
Then Russian authorities brought administrative cases against the editorial leadership.
In Chechnya, our columnist Elena Milashina was abducted and beaten half to death.
Our executive editor Oleg Roldugin was taken hostage, accused of having worked as a journalist. His trial is coming soon.
Authorities searched Novaya Gazeta’s editorial office for hours and also searched the editor-in-chief’s apartment.
In September of this year, Russian authorities designated the entire editorial staff as foreign agents, placing more than 100 journalists and contributors on the registry.
For nearly five years of the war, we managed to keep working, surrounded on all sides by the security services.
And now, that’s it. We have ended up in a ‘kill zone.’
This is not just our private story. It is the story of a country and a society being finished off the same way.
The FSB, the Justice Ministry, the prosecutor’s office, and others who have privatized the state and usurped power are doing this. This is not Soviet resentment. Behind that label, a military dictatorship has nearly been built.
They say they are defending the constitutional order. No, this is an anti-constitutional order. The Constitution has been raped, beaten, and thrown into prison for an enormous term with its mouth taped shut, just like thousands of the country’s citizens who simply followed its articles, and tens of thousands of other citizens who were forced to become refugees, leaving their homes and heading into the unknown.
…
The word ‘Constitution’ provokes sarcasm and laughter. From everyone. Even from judges. Especially from judges.
…
But treason is when the state betrays its own Constitution. This treason is an ongoing crime, unfolding right now before the eyes of the world.
The killing of Novaya Gazeta is further proof of that.
All these years, we wrote about exactly this, for as long as we could. That is exactly why we were killed.
Thank you to everyone who heard us.
The Editorial Staff
P.S.
The final issue will be published.
Pentagon tells Europeans to shush on Russia
Reuters has a fascinating report citing Pentagon officials, including Elbridge Colby, telling Europeans to stop stating Russia poses a threat to Europe.
This follows the intense campaign of sabotage and other sorts of attacks that Russia and proxies have been waging against the Europeans.
The article is more nuanced than the headline suggests, but it certainly adds to the just-whose-side-is-MAGA-on pile.
One of the people familiar told Reuters that Colby told a Baltic official recently that there should be no ‘poking’ directed at the Russians.
The person said Colby pointed to Europeans publicly suggesting that Russia was ‘cornered like a rat’ as an example of unhelpful rhetoric.
It was not clear what specific statement Colby was referring to. However, Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal referred to Putin as a ‘rat in a corner’ in late September, suggesting the Russian leader was resorting to sabotage efforts in Europe as Russia had become increasingly bogged down in Ukraine.
‘We are helping you. The Americans are there,’ said a separate European official, describing the Pentagon’s recent private messaging. ‘Just don’t be loud. Don’t make noise.’
In a separate recent meeting, the Pentagon urged an Estonian delegation to be ‘measured’ in its communications, according to a person briefed on the encounter, though the person did not say Pentagon officials complained about any specific statement.
The defence ministries of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia did not respond to requests for comment, while NATO declined to comment.
What’s the point of the Commonwealth
Dan Bloom has a hugely insightful read on the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting due to be held next week in Antigua.
Let’s be frank. No one has a clue what the Commonwealth is for anymore. King Charles III seems to like it, but what purpose does it serve, and what is it trying to achieve in 2026?
This hit a head of steam at the last CHOGM summit in Samoa when Keir Starmer ended up personally rewriting sections of the communique.
All this inertia means that anytime anyone ends up paying any attention to the organisation, which is headquartered in London, it ends up being a reheated debate on slavery and reparations that goes nowhere. Also insert here Republican movements plus an ever increasing strain on Britain’s soft power as it is forced to rule out time and time again paying reparations for colonial-era slavery.
The CHOGM meetings are now so counter-productive that former UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy and his special advisor Ben Judah tried to reduce how often it meets and refocus it on investment. This would have been hugely sensible.
Before Starmer left office this year, No. 10 had been drawing up plans for Starmer to skip this year’s CHOGM — and send Lammy as his representative. By then Lammy had been moved from the foreign office and was Starmer’s deputy prime minister.
…
More significantly, the 2024 summit also led to discussions in Whitehall about the set-up of CHOGM itself.
Lammy commissioned an internal review by Foreign Office officials on the Commonwealth in the wake of the 2024 summit, his former Special Adviser Ben Judah told POLITICO.
Judah said the review suggested reducing the frequency of CHOGMs to “every four or five years,” potentially aligned with the hosting of the Commonwealth Games, and seeking to remove the final communique and leaders’ retreat.
It suggested an investment conference in alternate years modeled on the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which could keep the Commonwealth branding but with no organizational role for the Secretariat, said Judah.
Judah suggested this would improve attendance at CHOGM, which is often patchy; India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi does not plan to attend next week’s summit, for example, though there will be a delegation led by External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. ‘The Indians think this thing is ridiculous and self-harming and just totally bizarre,’ said Judah. ‘They’d be interested in a real investment conference, not this farce.;
A second former U.K. government official said they knew about the report, which has not been made public, adding that No. 10 figures under Starmer discussed similar concerns about the format of the Commonwealth summit after the Samoa visit.
Airbnb v Hotels
I must admit, unless you’re group holidaying, there’s almost zero incentive to get an Airbnb over a hotel these days. Like a gazillion threads, tweets and articles, the chore involved with trying to access Airbnbs and the expectations of cleaning up when you check out, are way too much to deal with as a traveller compared to a hotel.
Airbnb has been listening and has banned its vendors from requiring short-term renters to do cleaning that the cleaning fee should cover. Now it is experiencing another kind of backlash.
Airbnb’s business is booming, so plenty of people are still choosing the first option. Nevertheless, the hospitality giant seems to have realised travellers are sick of being handed ridiculous chore lists, and is reining in some of its more tyrannical hosts. Last week Airbnb posted updated guidelines stating guests can no longer be asked to complete tasks that ‘require significant effort or time or would typically be performed by a cleaner’.
This entirely reasonable stipulation has gone down exactly how you’d expect from landlords who want to charge hotel-like fees without providing hotel-like services. Some hosts are desperately trying to find loopholes, while others are calling for a strike.
‘Even if we all unlist our properties for just a day or two, we can send a powerful message,’ one budding revolutionary wrote in a Facebook group for Airbnb hosts. ‘Airbnb built its empire on OUR properties. It’s time we reminded them who actually holds the power.’
…
What was once a fun and inexpensive way to travel often now feels like a bland rip-off.
And that’s my list for this week.
Please do send me anything that’s caught your eye; I enjoy knowing what you’ve been reading.
🎙️ On the ABC’s Global Roaming, Geraldine Doogue and I discussed the result of the Alberta referendum with Andrea Lawlor, and we dissected the inconclusive results of Israel’s elections.