My Fantasy Christmas Dinner (after dorkymum)

I loved dorkymum’s fantasy Christmas dinner, so here’s mine:

Catering: I take it the Man versus Food guy would be a bad idea?  Nigella’s pretty much a parody of herself these days so I’m going to say Nigel Slater, with Dan Lepard doing the cake.

Entertainment: I’d put on Con Anima’s madrigal CD (conducted by Paul Mealor, who composed a piece for the royal wedding and that military wives thing.  Don’t hold either of those against him though, his work’s bloody good.)  I have to declare an interest though, since it’s my sister’s choir!

Dress code: eh, whatever you want.  Although I might have to specify kilts for the men, just for my own enjoyment.

Guest list:

Stephanie Pearl McPhee (The Yarn Harlot): biggest knitting celebrity in the world and still manages to be completely normal.  And hilarious.  And Canadian.  What’s not to like?

Tim Harford: Oh, I love Tim Harford.  As long as he doesn’t do the whimsical banter thing, just the nerdy statistics/economics thing.  I already liked him on Radio 4 and in the FT but now I’m totally a fan of him on Twitter.

David Tennant: not my favourite Doctor and I didn’t even fancy him that much (it was always Christopher Eccleston for me) but he has such an endearing fan-boy attitude to the Doctor, and he’s a local boy.  I am 100% sure he would be brilliant company.

Susan Calman: a local girl to balance up, I don’t know if we’d be able to eat for laughing though.  She has such a great take on everyday life.  I just looked her up on wikipedia and saw that her father is Sir Kenneth Calman, which made my head explode (in a good way).  Maybe I should have had them both?

Jim al-Khalili: because he is just lovely and can talk to anyone in an interesting manner. I had dinner with him a few years ago, before he was all over Radio 4 and BBC4, and he’s fab.  Since he’s such a great interviewer, he’d make sure there were no awkward pauses.  And he has some really good/bad particle physics jokes.

Jocelyn Bell Burnell: one of my absolute most admired people and also really lovely in person!   Great scientist and science ambassador.  Someone I’d want to go sit beside if other people were being too rowdy.

Sandi Toksvig: if Susan Calman hadn’t already given us a stitch from laughing too much, Sandi would be the icing on the cake.  I first saw her on TV when she was sailing round Britain with John McCarthy and I’ve loved her ever since.

Patrick Stewart:  Mr Woodsmoke wants him for the conversation, but I’d just sit there and drool.  The fact that he’s, like, 70 now has absolutely no bearing.

I was going to stick to 6 celebs given than my dining room would only just fit 8 at a push… on the other hand, maybe I could have a fantasy dining room too?