Dinner Party for historical people

[Esioul]

I had an odd thought today at dinner thateveryone else kept adding odder thoughts too, imagine if you had a dinner party and you could invite anyone you wanted from history?

Who would you invite?

Would the guests get on with each other?

What would you give them to eat, and how would you entertain them?

My Dad wanted Sir Walter Scott and my Grandma didn't mind as long as they were Yorkshire. I thought it would be good to go for local people, maybe Oliver Cromwell, Hereward the Wake, Boudicca and the Molly Men. I can just imagine it- I expect Hereward is a steak kind of chap, but not as much as Boudicca is a steak kind of woman, but I bet Oliver eats things like caviar and smoked salmon, and the Molly Men eat cakes. It would be chaos... I'm sure Hereward and Oliver wouldn't get on somehow, and the Molly Men would make a terrible mess.

I suppose Cicero and Socrates would be a bit out of place, and I'm not sure Sir Walter Scott would get on very well with any of the guests, especially Boudicca, who he'd think terribly vulgar, and I don't know whether Boudicca might drink too much.

 

[littlemissattitude]

This is a really good question. However, I'm going to have to give it some thought. How many can we invite, Lou? Three? Five? Seven?

 

[dwndrgn]

I can just imagine the discussions...if you listen close you can catch snatches of some of them...

Darwin and Newton discussing scientific theory...
D: Yes, yes. I can see how practical application can teach you much but you must get out of your lab and just study the world around you sometimes. (as he waves his stalk of celery)
N: Of course you must study the world, but then you must put your studies to use. What good is theory if you can't prove it? (and he quickly quarters his chicken and examines each piece before discarding the whole thing and grabbing his goblet of wine)

DaVinci and Edison on mechanics...
D: Ah, yes, a source of power outside of the machine could be good. But where would you get such power if not from the individual working the machine? (and slurps his bean soup)
E: There is power all around us. All we need to do is figure a way to harness that power and control it. (he spears a potato with determination)

What fun this could be!

 

[Esioul]

You can invite as many as you like. I'm inviting the Molly Men anyway, and there's usually plenty of them.

 

[polymorphikos]

Herodotus, Odysseus, Helen, Elizabeth the First, Caesar Augustus, Julius Caesar, Kublai Kahn, Marco Polo, William Shakespeare, Joan of Arc, Homer, H G Wells and Herman Melville.

Imagine the arguments between Odysseus, Helen and Homer. It'd be Classic.

*dies laughing at his pun*

*is ressurected*

Through the miracle of instant messenger, this could become a really nerdy role-play at some point.

 

[littlemissattitude]

I'm still thinking about this, but as a start it occurs to me that I really might like to hear the conversation between Jesus and John Lennon on the subject of Lennon's famous (or infamous) comment about the Beatles being more popular than Jesus. Somehow, I think that Jesus might be a lot more tolerant of Lennon's remarks than a lot of Jesus's followers were at the time they were made. I also think they might find a lot to talk about on the subject of peace and peacemaking. Add Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. to the mix to make it an even more interesting, if a little bit of a heavy, conversation.

I'll have to think about who to add to the party to lighten it up just a bit.

 

[Hellsheep]

interesting thought...

I don't really who to invite, but one man for sure, the funny fellow named W.Churchill.

Maybe a discusion about resolving problems between J.V.Stalin and Ghandi might be very exciting
A.Einstein might also be an amusing guest

 

[scalem X]

Don Cristobal Colon (Columbus), Tolkien, Bruce Lee, Alexandre the great, Gengis kahn.

Conversations:
Tolkien explaining to Columbus that he in fact discovered Amerika instead of India.

Bruce Lee Helping Alexander to some Martial Arts.
And Gengis kahn pointing out: but why would anyone fight without weapons? Why would anyone fight without army? This is ridiculous and then he takes some bite of his lamb. Aaagh meat right of the bone.

 

[Stalker]

What can you say about such a company:
Ehnaton
Moses
Confutius and Lao Tzu
Prince Gautama Siddhartha Shakyamuni (Buddha)
Jesus Christ
Mohammad?

 

[Blue Mythril]

Little Miss, can I come to your party? That sounds fantastic! You know, with such a company we could probably start the true socialist revolution

As a historian I really have some questions I'm dying to ask, and naturally when you invite someone to a party its always polite to have someone they know there

So to kick things off I'd have Octavia cos boy would she be interesting to talk to: the key to the survival of Augustan politics. For a nice little reuniion I'd have Octavian/ Caesar Augustus, Agrippa, and Maecenas. I really think these guys would have been a riot if just chilling together. Arriving just after would be Asinius Pollio, Julius Caesar and Pompey for obvious reasons Then to top off my Roman faction I'd have Lucan enter the mix to give em all hell.

Peisistratus, Kliesthenes, Leonides, Sapho and Alexander will be my Greek division. The democracy, the emperor, the militant hero king, and the female poet from Lesbos...

I'd love to meet Boudiccea personally, plus it'd be fun to see how she reacts to the mammoth Roman representation William Wallace would be mad too...

Ha Queen Elizabeth I, Pope John Paul II, Paul the apostle and the first Jesuit Abbott.

Fidel Castro and Che. I'm gonna cop a bashing for this, but I like Castro, sure he's done nasty things, but the guys fascinating.

Actually I'm gonna stop here, I was going to start just listing personalities I'm interested in and start mixing the seating arrangements so that say Castro was between Augustus and Paul the Apostle, and Octavia was with Sapho and Caesar... Think of the possibilities....

 

[Stalker]

Why not add Marcus Crasus to Cnaeus Pompey and Julius Caesar in order to reunite the triumvirate? Such a brave company should be spiced by Gaius Claudius Catilina with the knives in his hands behind his back! I would also provide Lukan with Petronius Arbiter to assist. That would be a lot of hell then!