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

Woody Allen makes very funny films, but I have read that he is a miserable sod in real life! I went off him when he started an affair with his adopted daughter.

I put 'Woody Allen' on the FB post about this, then last evening watched a very nice film called 'Midnight in Paris', only to find it was directed by...Woody Allen.

Absent from what I remember, not in his later years. Anyway, drunk or sober, he would still be top of my list. I would also like to join feetlebaum in taking coffee with Dorothy Parker! Perhaps we could present her with One Perfect Rose (and no doubt she'd chuck it back at us!)

Great choices, feetlebaum - can I come to your party?

Sir Terry Pratchett, Richard Dawkins, Marilyn Monroe and Gioachino Rossini would do for starters... or for the entrée come to that. We could be joined for coffee and Cognac (Armagnac for those who prefer it) by Oscar Wilde and Dorothy Parker...

Stephen Fry, Dr Robert Winston, Judi Dench, Germaine Greer.
One at a time.I do hope my guest would have the ability to make me feel
interesting and get a word in.

Each to his own - I found Parkinson a touch obsequious and I wish he wouldn't advertise those awful over-50 insurance policies.
And as for Piers Morgan..................
I would like a chance to ask Sean Connery why he thinks it is all right for men to slap women.
I would have Charlotte Green just for the pleasure of listening to her voice, and add Nicholas Parsons for wit and wisdom.

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

Nelson Mandela. Just him.

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 ????

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.

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.

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 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!

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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!

Bill Clinton?

Bill Bryson.

Oh yes, but I suddenly remembered Bill Bailey!

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