My first choice of dinner companion would be....

Thank you Bagitha. Will start with the first Mary Renault one, and then progress on.

Managed to get a one penny used one Ariadne. Can't go wrong can I.

Interesting that most of our dinner companions are male - except for Judi Dench! Any other women we can think of?

Dara O Briain from 'Mock the Week' and the 'Apprentice you're fired' would be my first choice, I love his sense of humour. Infact anyone who could make me laugh would be my ideal dinner guest.

I think I'd have either Victoria Wood or Julie Walters as my ideal female dinner companion. Not both though, or I'd never get a word in edgeways!

Its hard to make a short list don't know how big the table will be and will I have enough chairs to go round, so I want someone who will make me laugh so John Bishop will fit the bill. Now how about Stephen Fry for intelligence and perhaps Bill Bryson for travel tips ,Marco Pierre White for food.
We now need a few ladies ,Judi Dench and Barbara Windsor and not forgetting Maureen Lipman that should balance things a bit.
Mustn't forget David Tennant for

Anagram I forgot about Victoria Wood and Julie Walters gonna have to get more chairs

Forget I mentioned women - I'd kill for an evening with Bill Bailey. One of the funniest men on the box and a skilled musician too. Plus Chris Addison, one of the wittiest of the younger stand-ups.

Why 'forget I mentioned women', Annobel? Don't you approve of our choices?

Oh yes, but I suddenly remembered Bill Bailey!

Bill Bryson.

Bill Clinton?

Bill Clinton if you have your passion killer corsets on!
I think professional comedians might be a disappointment in the flesh - I gather some of them can be quite morose.
I think a dinner party with a few gransnetters would be ideal - as long as I don't have to do the cooking, as I am not very good at it!

Ariadne you obviously had the same love of Mary Renault as I did. (I don't doubt you've also read the Theseus novels?) Apart from the novels, her biography "The Nature of Alexander" was very informative. Otherwise, it's Plutarch, Arrian, and Quintus Curtius.

I read all the Mary Renault novels long ago - pre-children, I think, before I had time to forget all I'd learnt in my studies of the classics.

He doesn't accord with my political views, but I love Boris Johnson and think he is self-effacing and personable. I bet he would be interesting!

Carol - are we thinking of the same Boris? Self-effacing is the last thing I would call him.
I agree he might be entertaining company though - I enjoyed the way Ian Hislop and Paul Merton teased him on HIGNFY. I would quite like to have the three of them to dinner.

Yes, we are Greatnan - I know he has misguided confidence in himself but on a more personal level I quite like him, and see the best of him on HIGNFY.

I feel sorry for his wife, who has had to put up with some very humiliating revelations about his womanising, but I guess she feels it is worth it.

I don't want to do anything other than have a conversation at the dinner table with him, so I can put that aside on the dinner party level. There's quite a few other interesting people whose morals are questionable when it comes to relationships, but I bet they are scintillating company over the duck a l'orange!

Not, I hasten to add, because being a womaniser makings a man interesting!

Funny how we always think of men. How about Jane Digby who left her husband in the early 19th century, had several affairs including one with the King of Greece and ended her days living as a Bedouin? Rosa Parks, Mary Seacole or someone like Violette Szabo. Where did she and the women like her get the courage to parachute into German occupied France?

By the way, my sister's married name is Winston and she often gets phone calls from women who say ' I want your husband to give me a baby'!

I would welcome brother and sister Giles and Victoria Coren - both so clever, witty and I am sure they would add something to the evening. I, too, would love to just gaze at David Beckham. As I like a good laugh, Bill Bailey and Maureen Lipman would be on my list, plus Celia Imrie for my hubbie, he loves her, and she always seems to have a sparkle. The Hairy Bikers could come, too, and hopefully provide the food as well as the northern humour. And Alan Titchmarsh and Carol Klein, to tell me where exactly I'm going wrong with my garden! And no list would be complete without gorgeous George (Clooney, of course).
Music would be provided by one of our local shanty teams: The Aberfal Oggymen, sound great and look good, too, with a nice sense of humour.
OK, that seems to be it. This has been a very good idea, nice to keep things light.

I would like Yoko Ono.Always hated her cos I loved John but she came over as really kind and interesting on Desert Island Discs.

As dinner guests I would love to invite Judi Dench, 'Parky', Paul O'Grady, especially Germaine Greer, and as a 1 to 1 it would be Piers Morgan, and to cook for us my choice would be, the surviving partner of 2-fat ladies,
Clarisa ????

Nelson Mandela. Just him.

artygran I though Alexander the Great had a reputationfor being abstemious.