h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

P.S. Good call, Ivana, on Mary Queen of Scots.

Hello all

Sophocles, Galileo, Michaelangelo, Shakespeare, Mozart, Capability Brown, Gertrude Jekyll, Oscar Wilde. No real criteria for this list other than enjoyment - although I guess it would provide a variety of entertainment, someone to explain the universe, a couple of people to do my garden and one to paint the ceiling.

Beloved

Hi Beloved,

What a great list! Is/was Gertrude Jekyll the sister of the famous doctor or a garden designer like Capability B? Oscar Wilde is an inspired choice who would add brilliance to the conversation at any dinner party. Sophocles, and Michaelangelo; ah me, he sighed, dreamily.

Walter.

Hiya Walter

Thank you.

Gertrude was a great garden designer (English, 19/20th century). Although you never know, at twilight in the potting shed you could easily mistake that mysterious dark liquid for your black coffee, especially if drinking instant - and then who knows what could happen ...

B

Hi,
I don't agree that my table should be without religion, sex or politics. I would rather keep away from people who are single minded and inflexible. A well thought out discussion on any subject is worth having.

I would like to have
Plato and
Aristotle for there far reaches in thought. All others has ideas to build on not that they were the very first to think but they were the first to have their thoughts recorded

Hildergard of Bingen as has been described earlier
St Augustine of Hippo because he was a nice good man

Mrs John Adams (I think her name was Marther) She was the woman behind John Adams as well as Thomas Jefferson at an important time some of her letters are very interesting.

John Locke he is my philosopher.

Kepler as my astronomer, because he invented or improved many other things, glasses are one thing I would like to thank him for.

The Lady that use to run the salons in Paris about the time of the French revolution, she brought together many of the thinkers and artists of the time.

And of course I would want to be there also, 9 being an odd number I would like a partner. Are you doing anything that night Walter.

Moondancer

Hi Moondancer,

If I am I would cancel to be with you and that line-up of guests. I didn't know that myopic people like me had Kepler to thank for our specs and being able to see properly. Martha Adams, and the woman who ran the salons, now that has great promise. And yes, despite the taboo that people shouldn't talk about religion or politics at the table, or sex, it would have dried up the conversation a fair bit on my selection of 'famous' guests. It would put the stoppers on any number of 'real' conversations, too.

Walter

Hi folks,
I don't know - I go away for a day and have to read twenty lists on my return.
The rest of you don't have to observe my conversational rules. The fun thing about this thread is being able to indulge our own prejudices.
Daley Thompson, Francis Drake, Hunter (medical museum founder), Chopin,Ian Botham, Capability Brown,General Wavell,(to talk about poetry!)Isambard Kingdom Brunel
I would assume that someone's taught Chopin English since his death.
I think that group of men satisfy my criteria and can I have the "Naked Chef" bloke to do the catering?

Why Capability Brown?
and why would this lot want to eat with the likes of us anyway?

Ok, for the Mostly Harmless dinner.

1) Jesus
2) Marilyn Monroe
3) The Apostle Paul
4) Mohammed
5) Sun Tuz (Art of War)
6) Joan of Arc
7) King Solomon
8) Moses
9) Me (Mostly Harmless)

Hello Hoversnail,
I'd like to find out whether Capability Brown really thought that's what his gardens would look like hundreds of years later or whether he was just snowing his aristocratic patrons and whether he liked the modern variations of some trees that have been developed since his death. We could also talk about global warming,
W'g

Gooday everyone,

Great list, Mostly harmless. Solomon and Moses, Paul, Jesus and Mohammed; oh yes, extra cool, the meaning of life and everything. A long weekend rather than just an evening, I think.

Women. Different criteria from my male list. Helen of Troy, Mary Magdalene, Boadicea, Christina Mirabilis, Mary Tudor, Catherine the Great, Eva Braun, Sophia Loren.

Walter.

I'd have to have the following:

Richard Burton
Oliver Reed
Dorothy Parker
Tennessee Williams
Jesus (In case we run out of wine)
Bette Davis
Isabella Rossellini
Isabella Allende
Gerard Phillipe

That's my lot

Ok

1) Michael Collins as he was possibly a man who was about to be left alone further than anyman before when Armstrong and Aldrin went down in the LM.
2) Leonardo da Vinci because he'd have so much to share
3) Christopher Marlowe as he was a better writer than Shakespeare
4) Ian Paisley 5) Gerry Adams /well it's worth a try
6) Captain Oates, any man who can walk out of the shelter of a tent in a roaring Blizzard in the vain attempt to save the others is worthy of a seat.
7) The Empress Matilda a great lady and King maker.
8) Gene Rodenberry well am a fan need I say more.

Well, here's mine....

1)My Brother
2)Boadica
3)Emperor Hadrian
4)MArtin Luther King
5)Amelia Earhart
6)Pablo Picasso
7)David Ben-Gurion
8)D.H. Lawrence

Catering by anyone other than Delia Smith or Jamie Oliver.

Gooday Demon Drawer,

Christopher Marlowe a better writer than Shakespeare? I agree, it was actually Edward de Vere, earl of Oxford, who wrote the works attributed to 'Shakespeare'.

And how nice to see recognition of one of my boyhood heros, Lawrence Oates, like de Vere another of Essex's illustrious sons. Oates, who was born and died on St Patrick's day, died in Scott's ill-fated Antarctic expedition of 1912. Knowing himself to be a burden on the other members of the party, he went out into a raging blizzard, saying "I am just going outside, and I may be some time." On his last evening, he spoke of his mother back home in Gestingthorpe, and of his love for the Essex countryside. Oates' mother lived to be nearly ninety, and every day, after her son's death, she would go to the churchyard at Gestingthorpe and polish the brass plaque erected there in memory of her son, and talk with him.

The Empress Matilda may be all the things you claim for her Demon Drawer, but is the article finished so that we can all read about her for ourselves?

Walter.

Shush Wawlter I'm a little overrunning on those articles. And Abi was on earlier to me about them. I've ahd a rather difficult time of things recently and things IRL are moving a little too fast to actually get around to working on these at the rate I thought I would.

Gooday Demon Drawer,

Hey, that's okay, it is an ambitious project and they can get away from you in terms of time. It's a right sod when work interferes with our pleasure, isn't it? As you can see, that is not a problem for me at the moment.

Walter.

Mind you if I were to do people alive today and able to meet me for Dinner.

1) Stephen Hawking
2) Garry Kasparov
3) Sebastian Coe
4) Nelson Mandela
5) Kurt Douglas
6) Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mum
7) Madonna
8) The boy David

Kasparov? That's an interesting one. Are you a chess fanatic or is there some other reason for including him?

Yes I dablle in chess and once upon a time had a grading