Dream dinner party

The following is inspired by one of those 'top five' things on Facebook - dream guests at a dinner party, dead or alive. Though I added an extra couple of people to make it an even split of men/women. Because it's my blog, and I can. (I've also watched enough Come Dine with Me to know how these things should be done properly).

1) Stephen Fry
Because it's Stephen bloody Fry. He'd be witty, erudite, charming, and when he wasn't looking I'd drop his iPhone in the soup.


2) Mary Wollstonecraft
She had affairs, she liked sex, she had kids outside of wedlock. Pretty subversive for the 18th century - and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman is a groundbreaking book. (She also had a friend called Fanny Blood, which - immature as I am - makes me laugh).


3) Richard Armitage
Because every dinner party needs something pretty to look at. Though if he wasn't able to make it I'd happily accept an Aidan Turner-shaped replacement.


4) Jesus on a dinosaur
He'd be brilliant if we ran out of wine. And if you're going to have Jesus at your dinner party, he may as well bring a dinosaur. ("Holy Jesus on a Dinosaur!" also makes a brilliant expletive).


5) Shakespeare
The greatest writer who ever lived. I'd also ask him to bring along a few spare copies of Cardenio and Love's Labour's Won.


6) Marilyn Monroe
I find her fascinating. Somehow she's become stereotyped as the epitome of the 'dumb blonde', but she read Ulysses. That's impressive. I haven't read Ulysses and I'm an English Lit student who focuses on the modern and contemporary. Respect to her, and it'd be fascinating to find out what she was really like (and I could get the goss on Arthur Miller)


7) Dorothy Parker
She makes me laugh. A lot. "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force."