Christmas is a time for feasting
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Season’s Feastings
Thank you for your continued support throughout 2022. Our readership grew to over 75,000 this year, and I have loved hearing from subscribers across every corner of the globe.
Thinking back to December last year, much of our attention was on Omicron and how we could avoid another canceled Christmas. Back then, we made small adaptations to everyday life to lessen the chances of getting infected, including, as many do every winter, changes to our diet in the hope of ‘boosting our immune system’.
As we close out the year, I leave you with a book recommendation which has challenged many of my own assumptions around food and its impact on the body. Food for Life: The New Science of Eating Well by Tim Spector is a compelling read that challenges convention with hard, evidence-based science, something of a rarity in today’s “wellness” obsessed culture of fad diets and juice cleanses. Spoiler - supplements really won’t solve your problems!
Spector first came to my attention during the height of the pandemic, when he created the Zoe Study, an app-based research which tracked the symptoms of millions of Covid sufferers from across the U.K. and America. His pioneering approach of mass data collection advanced the fight against the virus and saved countless lives.
Spector’s new book is a must-read for the scientifically semi-literate pandemic survivor, looking to live a fuller and healthier life.
I hope you have the chance to embrace the festive season surrounded by loved ones. And if, like me, you end up feasting and then feeling tempted by the next quick-fix diet, I urge you to read Spector’s latest book.
The Memo will take a festive break and return in January.
Five Things We Learned
Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest man. Tesla’s stock value has slumped by over 60% this year, hitting Musk’s fortune hard. He sold another $3.6 billion in Tesla stock this week. At the time of writing, LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault and family now top the Forbes billionaires list.
Electrified cargo planes could take to the skies from 2024. The all-electric new Eviation Alice jet resembles a private jet in size and could be the start of a revolution in green aviation. It's the “Tesla Model S’” of electric aircraft, says one of the company’s backers.
The shortest day of the year is getting longer. The Winter Solstice, marked on 21 December in the West, is getting seconds longer each year, as the Earth’s tilt is slowly decreasing as part of a cycle that lasts 40,000 years. The opposite is happening in the Southern hemisphere, where the longest day of the year is getting shorter.
Free Covid tests are back in the United States. Responding to a surge of cases after the Thanksgiving holiday, the White House has restarted its free testing program. Cases rose 50% in the first week of December, reaching nearly 460,000.
Fake Heiress Anna ‘Delvey’ Sorokin is back in the limelight. The convicted fraudster, ‘socialite’ and reimagined star of Netflix series Inventing Anna spoke exclusively to Forbes about her life under house arrest and her aspirations for fame (and fortune) on a new online platform.
The Good
The Italian city of Naples has introduced one-way pedestrian streets. Rocketing numbers of tourists are causing public safety problems in parts of Italy. Naples responded this year with one-way foot traffic along Via San Gregorio Armeno, one of its narrowest historic hotspots.
The Bad
Road traffic is predicted to rise by up to 54% over the next 35 years in Britain. Post-pandemic life has changed the forecasts for road use, thanks to increased online shopping and flexible working. The solution? Stop building more roads.
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Watch
How Florida got so weird.
FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried speaks exclusively to Forbes. Ahead of the company’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, Bankman-Fried responds to public outcries after losing a reported $16 billion dollars. Forbes, free to watch worldwide.
Listen
Christmas with Charles Dickens. Take a walk through the many Christmases of the renowned Victorian author including his family punch recipe and elephants walking on ice in London. You’re Dead to Me, BBC, free to listen worldwide.
Read
Food for Life. Empowering and practical, Food for Life is nothing less than a new approach to how to eat - for our health and the health of the planet. Penguin, from $12.
Taste
Holiday cocktails to kick start your festive season. Forbes contributor Claudia Alarcón introduces this season’s on trend cocktails including the kitsch Cosmo Bianco Jello Salad, a classy take on jelly-based shots.
