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Friday afternoon quiz

Okay, that’s quite enough seriousness. My question for the weekend is, if you were organising a dinner party and could invite six famous people around, alive or deceased, who would you pick? Mine are:
My wife, obviously (she will be famous, some day)
David Niven.
Joan Collins
PJ O’Rourke
Diana Rigg
Groucho Marx

Choices are not based on trivia such as looks – Mrs P being very good-looking, however – but on style, wit and elegance.

I’d naturally ask Stephen Fry to work as the butler for the evening.

63 comments to Friday afternoon quiz

  • fuloydo

    That’s a toughie….

    I’d have to go with, in no particular order:
    Mark Twain
    Robert Heinlein
    Benjamin Franklin
    Nikola Tesla
    My paternal grandfather (because he died before I was old enough to know him)

  • JerryM

    Mozart
    Mickey Mantle
    Marilyn Monroe
    Ronald Reagan
    Pope John Paul II
    Condi Rice

  • Fraser

    Condoleezza Rice
    Richard Dawkins
    Bono
    PJ O’Rourke
    Nicola Benedetti
    Nassim Nicholas Taleb

  • Julian Taylor

    Evelyn Waugh
    Winston Churchill
    Either Dylan Thomas, Richard Burton, Oliver Reed or Brendan Behan, depending upon which one was sober enough to attend (should think neither would be)
    Frank Whittle
    Tennessee Williams,
    Lord Byron

    And a well-stocked wine cellar I should think.

  • HJHJ

    Off the top of my head:

    James Clerk Maxwell
    Alan Turing
    Bob Carolgees (and, of course, Spit the dog)
    Isambard Kingdom Brunel
    Spike Milligan
    Graham Greene
    Richard Feynmann

    Yes, I know there are 7, but if you’re allowed to cheat by having Stephen Fry as butler, then so am I.

  • Tom McKendree

    My first thought is:

    Winston Churchill
    Clementine Churchill, is wife
    John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough
    Sarah Churchill, his wife
    Benjamin Franklin
    Dorothy Parker

    I certainly would like to be at the dinner party where Winston and John meet.

  • Isaac

    I’ve always had an on-going list of people I’d like to have coffee with, so I’ll list some of those, dinner would work too, but most of these I would like to meet one-on-one (this is also a great way to break free of the 6 person limit 🙂

    Spritual leaders:
    Jesus (not that I’m religious, I’d just like to meet the most (IMO) influential person (real or not) in history)
    Buddha
    Lao Tzu

    Philosophers:
    Bertrand Russel
    Thomas Jefferson
    John Adams

    Authors:
    Robert M. Pirsig
    Robert Heinlein

    That should be enough, though there are many more, of course…

  • Tanuki

    My list would be:

    Douglas R. Hofstadter
    James Watt
    Margaret Thatcher
    Alan Blumlein
    Edward Teller
    Oliver Cromwell

  • Francesco

    Karl Marx
    Vladimir Ilic Ulianov (Lenin)
    Muhammad
    Bono
    Noam Chomsky
    Antonio Gramsci

    Now, any suggestion on which wine to serve with the raw False Morels (Gyromitra Esculenta) risotto I’m going to serve them? 😀

  • Hank Scorpio

    Augustus
    Otto Von Bismarck
    Frederick II Hohenstauffen
    Johnny Cash
    Michelangelo
    George Washington

  • H.L. Mencken
    Mark Twain
    Dorothy Parker
    William F. Buckley
    Oscar Wilde
    Tony Blair

  • steve

    There would be a storyteller, a religious leader, a renaissance person, a pioneer of medicine, an entertainer and a lateral (or innovative) thinker.

    The favourite in each category would of course change from time to time, depending on how I was feeling when I made out the invitations.

  • Mark Twain
    Benjamin Franklin
    Snorri Sturleson
    Richard Feynmann
    Terry Pratchett
    Robert Heinlein
    Niccolo Machiavelli

    It’d be interesting seeing how the conversations sorted out. I’m assuming, of course, that a universal translator is available alongside the resurrection machine – otherwise poor Snorri would be sitting alone in a corner, and Machiavelli likewise.

  • veryretired

    There used to be an interesting TV show called “Meeting of the Minds” (I think it was), produced by Steve Allen, of all people, that did this very thing. Actors were given dialogue gleaned from famous people’s writings and set in a discussion format of 4 or 6. I have no idea if it is available on DVD.

    Anyway. Jesus would be a terrific guest for any dinner party, of course, because you would never have to worry about running out of wine, or bread and fish for that matter, but his presence would probably put a damper on most of the others’ inclination to discuss many subjects freely.

    I guess I would start with Aristotle, Leonardo, Shakespeare, Jefferson, Edison, and Jeanne Kirkpatrick.

    On another night I would invite Alexander, Julius Ceasar, Napoleon, Washington, US Grant, and George Marshall. The theme for discussion would be the relationship between military might and political power.

    That’s enough for now, although it would be easy to fill up several more evenings with both male and female guests selected to explore specific topics or fit into general areas of achievement.

    Good subject for posting. Thanks.

  • Jessica Alba
    Zhang Ziyi
    Katherine Heigl
    Evelyn Lin
    Anna Kournikova

    and Barry White to get them all in the mood.

  • Hank Scorpio

    Veryretired’s comment about US Grant made me realize that I left Bill Sherman off of my list, damn it. I’ve always been fascinated by the man.

  • RAB

    Well the first thing that occured to me is that Johnathan doesn’t know much about organising dinner parties.
    First rule is not to invite anyone wittier than you. Or if you do they have to be the only one.
    So PJ or Groucho has to go. Keep Niven. He has that other element that dinner parties need. Effortless flirtacious charm.
    Your choice of ladies only lacks for Joannah Lumley (a particular fetish of mine).
    No I will think on as to my personal ones for now.
    The choices being made above are quite revealing though.
    Jeanne Kirkpatrick??!!!!

  • veryretired

    RAB—she’s the US counterpart to M. Thatcher. If you had ever heard her speak or debate, you would better understand. Her writings are also very good.

    Intellectually tough as nails.

    The theme for that first group would be the meaning of being a human being in a society composed of both human and inhuman elements. A theme which could, naturally, be repeated with any number of other combinations, but this was the first group I thought of off the top of my head.

  • RAB

    Um wasn’t she having drinks in the Argentinian Embassy the night they invaded the Falklands
    and a teensy weensie bit partial to the IRA?

    Yeah see what you mean
    Hard as nails!!

  • Nick M

    Feynman (who had better have brought his bongos)
    Wilde (why no earlier mention?)
    Thurman (Uma not Strom)
    Eastwood (we would have a piano)
    Joan Rivers (we need a bitch)
    Dita Von Teese (do I need to explain?)

    And Vlad III of Wallachia would provide the extremely rare Swordfish Kebabs. Or at least that’s what we’d hope they were…

  • CFM

    The list is very long. But based on current whim:

    Coffee or Dinner

    Themistocles
    Marcus Aurelius
    Charles Martel
    Jefferson Davis
    F. A. Hayek

    And for Dessert

    Kelly Hu

  • Abu Bakr
    The Duke of Edinburgh
    Chico Marx
    Ayn Rand
    Jimmy Stewart
    Tiberius

  • bob

    H. Munro
    Albert Finney
    Leon Battista Alberti
    Bach–I just really want to know if its true that he was hopping on maids during the sermons at St. Thomas. And he may play if he wishes.
    Boccaccio.

    No prudes or teetotalers. Men of experience, wit and taste; and me.

    Next Friday it should be: dinner for 5 of the most boring literary or political geniuses of the 19th century?

  • Midwesterner

    I had a list that didn’t mix real well so I decided to name two separate lists.

    Thomas Jefferson
    James Madison
    Ben Franklin
    George Mason IV
    Alexis de Tocqueville
    John Stossel (with a camera crew)

    As an alternative

    Isaac Newton
    Albert Einstein
    Karl Popper
    Richard Feynman
    Dave, a friend of mine. He’s an old guy, he may be retired by now, I haven’t seen him for a couple years. I have no idea what he does/did for a living but there was a radiation triangle on the door where he worked which was below ground level at the end of a long ramp. And it had a ‘tron’ at the end of the name. He has a mind that knows everything from the wiring of antique British motor cycles, to the physical properties of just about anything you can name. And he explains stuff so it makes sense to me.

    and finally … for my sixth choice … most definitely …
    Danica McKellar (two links) … sigh …
    What Dave doesn’t explain at the table, she can explain … later.

    Oh, and for the butler? Groucho Marx. With help from Harpo.

  • If you invite Robert Heinlein you should also include his wife Virginia. It would seem from his travel memoir Tramp Royale that she shaped the philosophy of his characters.

    I like the suggestion of Chico Marx; from all I’ve heard Groucho was a very unpleasant dinner guest.

    I’d take Robert E. Lee over the above-mentioned Jefferson Davis, partly because the conversation would turn to engineering.

    Actually, since I don’t host anything but potlucks, I have no business playing this game.

  • CFM

    Can I invite Jonathan’s wife?

  • bob

    I am thinking of substituting Walter Pater for Saki. Anyone who wants to burn with a hard, gem-like flame (possibly the gayest thing I have ever heard) sounds like a welcome addition around the drinks table. With my luck, he’d spend the evening boring everyone about progressive pedagogy, ephebic agape and rugger…

  • I blogged my choices:

    Rush H. Limbaugh III
    Thomas Sowell
    Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
    Thomas Jefferson
    John Locke
    Samuel Rutherford

    Actually, I could come up with all sorts of party themes. One idea for fun woudl be to invite Jefferson and five archlefty lawprofs (like Lawrence Tribe) and chat about the Constitution. First thing I’d ask J is if “speech” per the First Amendment means anything besides literal speech. I already know the answer, but the other guests need to hear it…

  • Counting Cats

    Ok,

    Oscar Wilde,
    Sam Clemens,
    Sir Richard Francis Burton (The man was sheer effing genius and no one else has mentioned him. Why?)
    Robert Heinlein
    Thomas Jefferson
    Milton Freidman

    Military? No one has mentioned Belisarius. He is up there with Lee and Caesar.

    You want a cat fight instead?
    Empress Theodora,
    Henry VIII
    Two Caesars, Julius and Octavian
    Czar Pyotr Alexeyevich Romanov

    That’ll do. With those egos there wouldn’t be room for a sixth person.

    Um, my more juvenile fantasies?
    Rita Hayworth
    Nell Gwynne
    Delilah
    Empress Theodora (again)
    Anne Boleyn

    And —

    Dita von Teese (hat tip Nick M)

  • Yobbo’s list takes some beating, but…

    Thomas Aquinas (just so I can watch him eat)
    Isambard Kingdom Brunel (who could turn his mind to anything)
    Kate Beckinsale (intelligence, wit, perfect arse)
    George Washington (curious to listen in to him and Masood chatting)
    Richard Francis Burton (the ultimate man’s man)
    Margaret Thatcher (sheer force of personality)

  • Nick M

    Apologies for claiming I was first on the thread to mention Oscar. I’d be OK if he dropped out and sent along his friend James Whistler instead. And while we’re playing swapsies I’ll have to let the divine Uma go and replace her with Debbie Harry. Sorry, Uma, I will make it up to you. To be honest, mind I’d like them both and for us all to bunk-up a bit more and make room for Jorge Luis Borges as well.

    From Hell…

    Al Gore – An inconvenient guest who looks like he’s had a few too many good feeds recently. Who makes the Goreacle’s pants and how can they possibly offset that much carbon?

    Lenin – Not only a bastard of the first water but a crushing bore. If Vladimir can’t make it then we’ll sub for Schopenhauer.

    Alan Hansen – “That dessert was woeful – where was the chef? As you can see from this replay there was no caramalization at the back).

    Robbie Williams – “No Robbie, the invite was just for you and not your ‘personal demons’ – they’ll have to wait in the car”. If William’s ‘personal demons’ won’t allow it then Patrick “Give it up..” Kielty – Northern Ireland’s least welcome export to these shores since semtex.

    Abu Hamza – imagine his table manners?

    Richard Madeley or Robert Kilroy-Silk or Jeremy Kyle or Piers Morgan – whichever of these unctious gob-shites has a gap in their social diary (i.e. all of them).

    Oh, and George Best serving the drinks. “Can we have the port now, Gerorge?” / “What, the whole bottle?”

  • Sunfish

    Jesus. We’d not run out of wine, and besides I’ve wanted to meet him anyway.
    Robert and Virginia Heinlein.
    Douglas Adams
    Mark Knopfler
    P.J. O’Rourke

  • Kevyn Bodman

    Nobody’s got Jane Austen! She’d be a wonderfully witty conversationalist.
    Thomas Jefferson
    Bill Clinton
    Michelangelo
    Hedda Hopper
    Mary Chapin Carpenter

  • Nick M

    Is anybody else getting comments an indeed threads turning up in seemingly randomly sometimes late. Is it just me? Or is time an illusion?

  • RAB

    Dammit Nick you beat me to it with the guest list from hell !!!
    I’ll add
    Lou Reed
    Captain Beefhart
    Van Morrison.
    I love their music but they absolute bastards in person.

  • Nick M

    Is anybody else getting comments and indeed threads turning up in seemingly randomly order, sometimes late. Is it just me? Or is time an illusion?

    fixed!

  • Nick M

    Is anybody else getting comments and indeed threads turning up in seemingly randomly order, sometimes late. Is it just me? Or is time an illusion?

    Fixed (again?)

  • Nick M

    Sunfish,
    Mark Knopfler!?

    Mid,
    List 1: Reckon you’ve got enough founders of the US there? Well, if you want constitutional shop-talk over the table then… fine. Personally, I prefer risque annecdotes.

    List 2: Your four intellectual titans will form a huddle and will have written out a working Unified Field Theory on your napkins by the time the cheese comes round. Your dinner party will go down in the annals of science but it will hardly be sparkling with banter and you’ll be torn between catching-up with your old mate and chatting-up Ms McKellar. BTW, I don’t think that photo-shoot does her justice. Have you got a better one so I can form a fuller opinion? Preferably showing a bit of ass because you wouldn’t want a bird who wasn’t callipygian now would you?

  • Counting Cats

    Can I add Betty Page to my list?

    Please.

  • Monkey

    Winston Churchill (I wonder what he would make of NuLabour)
    Margaret Thatcher
    Hitler
    Ayn Rand
    Teagan Presley (Porn Star)
    Admiral Nelson

    And for a Butler I would have a ball gagged Polly Toynbee.

  • Midwesterner

    Oh Nick, you know me far too well. At least in the second case.

    In the first case, I intended a genuine libertarian and very knowledgeable reporter (John Stossel) to thoroughly document for broadcast a Q&A with the founders and a close-later observer (Toqueville) of what was created. It seems it could go a long way towards resolving certain questions about the extent of government intended in the Constitution. It might also serve to remove some opinions that were attached to them postmortem.

    In the second case, yes, that is almost what would happen. Just not the huddle. We would be witnessing something amazing. And with D&Ds’ help, I would at least have some small clue what transpired. I debated whether Newton was too early to be useful and decided it’s the person not the product. Given what the more recent guests knew, he would catch up in a one breath and contribute on the next. As for Dave v. Danica? No contest. Dave can drop by the next day with a case of good beer and we’ll relive the adventure. (Assuming the yet living members of the party can do so.) As for pics, I am not aware of any. My impression is that Ms. McKellar is actually a rather modest sort and did that shoot to scrub off some of her squeaky clean image and help expand the kinds of roles she is offered. But if you find any, you have my email! 🙂

  • Osbert Sitwell
    Diana Mosely
    Dorothy Parker
    Nancy Mitford
    Adolf Hitler
    Winston Churchill

  • Robert

    T E Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia)
    Winston Churchill
    Adolph Hitler; said to have been a most witty and erudite dinner guest.
    Confucius
    Temujin (Ghenghis Khan)
    Bartolomeo Diaz (El Cid)

  • pietr

    Ayn Rand
    Captain Stirling(founder of SAS)
    Ian Fleming
    General Patton
    Geoffrey De Havilland
    Either of the Wright Brothers.

  • maneul II paleologos

    Francois Rabelais, Julius Caesar, Nelson, my great uncle Peter.

    The Holly Hunter character from Broadcast News.

    Mrs II Paleologos, obviously.

    Benedict XVI on piano.

  • ralph nadir

    Ayaan Hirsi Ali
    Rosario Dawson
    Nick Cave
    Stephen Colbert
    Anthony Bourdain(who would also both cater and provide a film crew)

  • Kulibar Tree

    I’m surprised that Abraham Lincoln hasn’t featured on anyone’s guest list (apologies if missed it), so:

    Abraham Lincoln and William Pitt the younger
    (two who between them gave us the three greatest speeches in the English language)
    Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke
    Mark Steyn (slightly drier wit than PJ O’Rourke)
    Robert Conquest
    Jack Vance (a much better writer than Robert Heinlein, who was many people’s choice) – and I’d love to know if he speaks in the same exotic register as his prose.

    Cheers

  • Counting Cats

    two who between them gave us the three greatest speeches in the English language

    Well, Gettysburg Address I know, what were the other two?

    I guess I don’t know as much about Pitt as I should.

    What about Churchill’s blood, toil, tears and sweat? That count? It tends to send shivers down my spine, or it could just be the context I guess.

    How about –
    Lincoln
    Churchill
    Kennedy
    Heinlein
    Thatcher
    Freidman

    Substitues –
    Jefferson
    Hayek
    Popper
    Franklin

    In these we have the proper mix of erudition, philosophy, experience, realism and political sophistication.
    Not Reagan, his skill was choosing the right people, although maybe he could MC the discussion.

    And can I have Shakespeare or Milton to transcribe the final communique?

  • Counting Cats

    Not Reagan, his skill was choosing the right people

    Although he did choose Jean Kirkpatrick. Shudder.

    If he had listened to her, Reagans bestest friend in all the would would have been Galtieri, not Thatcher. Where that foreign policy disaster have left the US in subsequent decades is anyones guess.

    She may have been an as hard as nails bitch, but she wasn’t our hard as nails bitch.

  • How about making it a celebrity bloggers bash?

    Tim Blair
    Tammy Bruce
    Mark Cuban
    Hugh Hewitt
    Michelle Malkin
    Virginia Postrel

  • Kulibar Tree

    Counting Cats:
    “two who between them gave us the three greatest speeches in the English language

    Well, Gettysburg Address I know, what were the other two?”

    Lincoln indeed gave us The Gettysburg Address, and also his 2nd inaugural speech, 1865 (“With malice toward none, with charity for all…”); and Pitt gave us his reply to the Lord Mayor’s toast, 1805 (“England has saved herself by her exertions…”).

    Cheers

  • Pogo

    Al Gore
    Karl Popper
    Four assorted boxing referees.

    Could be fun! 🙂

  • Julian Taylor

    Abu Hamza – imagine his table manners?

    Ah, but he does have his own knife and fork though.

  • Hardatwork

    Beethoven
    Einstein
    Churchill
    Nero
    Mohammed
    Borat

  • HJHJ

    Midwesterner,

    If you’re going to invite Newton and Einstein, you really ought to invite Maxwell for a really interesting conversation between the ‘big three’. Feynmann would be fun to have along at the same time, of course.

    Pietr – Geoffrey de Havilland. Hadn’t thought of him, but yes, an excellent and interesting choice. As a student I worked in one of the sheds where they buit Mosquitos. I would have loved to have met him.

  • MarkE

    A while back I read the transcript of a conversation between P J O’Rourke and Clive James over coffee, and wished I had been waiting at that table, so I’ll start there before adding:

    W S Churchill
    Oscar Wilde
    Dorothy Parker
    Joan Rivers

    And may I ask the young Audrey Hepburn to be our waitress for the evening?

    I’m not sure some of the more specialised suggestions above, whether from the worlds of politics or of the sciences, might not be a little “dry” for dinner.

    Alternatively:

    Marco Polo
    Peter Fleming
    Robert Byron
    Ted Simon
    Gertrude Bell
    Freya Stark

    Although the menu may be a challenge if I’m to offer something they will find interesting.

  • Murray Rothbard,
    Ayn Rand,
    Ludwig von Mises,
    Milton Friedman,
    Thatcher,
    Richard Cobden

    I’d predict some fireworks…

  • Jack Coupal

    Christopher Hitchens
    Richard Feynmann
    Thomas Jefferson
    Winston S. Churchill
    Ronald Reagan
    Robert Frost

  • Paul Marks

    If it had to be a group of people who were alive and in the prime at the same time (although I am not saying anything against any of the above groups) it would have to be “the club”.

    Dr Johnson, Boswell, Reynolds, Garrick and Edmund Burke.

    And if Adam Smith came down on a visit (as he sometimes did) I promise not to lecture him on his decay from his early work to the errors of “The Wealth of Nations” (well perhaps I should not make promises I can not keep).

    Of course if the talk over the port and food was on culture – I would just sit and listen (as many people did).

    If it has to be a 20th century group – The Inklings.

    Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams and whatever other two guests (from the Inkling group) they wanted to bring along.

    Both groups would sit and talk (and eat and drink) with total strangers who just walked up to them – you just had to be in the right place at the right time.

  • jb

    Jesus

    J.R.R. Tolkein

    C.S. Lewis

    Henry David Thoreau

    Ted Williams (gotta have a dead Red Soxer in the mix)

    Billy Beck (just so damnably interesting!)

  • Vladimir Nabokov (and Vera, of course)
    Kingsley Amis
    Orrin Porter Rockwell
    Richard Meinertzhagen
    Leopold Trepper

  • Billy Beck
    Barbara Amiel
    Keith Richards
    Moe Berg
    Ray Medway

  • Billy Beck
    Barbara Amiel
    Keith Richards
    Moe Berg
    Ray Medway