Though the “Lunch with FT” interview column in the Financial Times can be a bit of a humdrum affair at times, with interviewees focusing less on the subject’s comments and more on their use of a chilled salad fork or psychoanalyzing their salt application, there’s a been a surge of interesting conversations lately that have broken past the mealtime pleasantries. Most recently, Martin Amis (pictured here) pulled up a chair and pondered a “very pig-oriented” menu before transitioning into Nabokov and the Taliban (read the Amis interview). Recent lunch guests have also included Naomi Klein, Helen Mirren and former UN ambassador John Bolton, who clings to neocon ideals even while noshing on Freedom fries (with Donald Rumsfeld seated at the next table).