Dinner Dreams

I'll be confined to barracks this weekend as my MOT runs out tomorrow and Gordon, my friendly mechanic, can't fit me in until Monday morning. I've got no plans to see anybody or do anything in particular ( other than getting thoroughly acquainted with Bertha the Earthtruck) and with Jack away, I'll be craving company. I've agreed to help out behind the bar at the football club on Saturday night. There's a 40th birthday party so at least the music is likely to be decent and it beats spending another night sitting in the Shed.

What I'd really like to do would be to host a fabulous dinner party. I'm not entirely sure what would be on the menu but chances are it would be a slow-roasting dish, probably lamb, followed by a chocolate pudding covered in coronary cream. I've also been wondering who I might invite.

I'd love Queen Elizabeth I to come over so we could chat in assorted languages, mainly about boys and how hard it is to find a good one, but she'd have to dress in something more practical or else there'd be no room for Alexander The Great. Now there's a man I could marry. A natural born leader, decisive, determined, handsome, away for long periods of time, likes libraries. 'Course, I'd have him well insured. Shame about the homosexuality and shortness but it's something I'm beginning to think I might have to compromise on ( and if he came in the form of Colin Farrell, I might just be able to manage that). He'd likely have some interesting views on how to resolve the current Middle East problems.

Bess of Hardwick would tell us all how she managed to find and marry 4 eligible men, each one progressively wealthier than the last enabling her to become the first lady of Chatsworth, grandmother to a legitimate claimant to the throne and the richest woman in Britain at the time of her death. I imagine her and Queenie might need sitting at opposite ends of the table though.

It would be great to hear first hand about Ibn Battuta's 14th century travels and his opinion on whether to take travellers' cheques or use plastic. Vita Sackville-West could give me tips on how to maximise my herbaceous borders and Oscar Wilde would discuss the current state of the prison system with me and ask for some grammatical help on his latest manuscript.

I'd revel in hearing Maria Callas' stories of Aristotle and whether the bar stools on the yacht Christina really were covered in sperm whale foreskin. I could tell her all about the time I once swam in the harbour at Skorpios and pretended I was her. Oh, how we'd laugh. I'd have to watch she didn't overdo the wine though. I wouldn't want any ouzo-soaked weeping or wailing to spoil the atmosphere.



I'd sit Elvis, the young leather-clad one, between me and Mata Hari, who'd have called round earlier to run through a quick after-dinner dance routine with me to surprise and delight the other guests, so he could compare her flat chest to my ample bosom. He's a greedy boy so unlikely to go for the waif look.

Leonardo da Vinci would add some gravitas to the proceedings, and maybe even paint a fresco of it later to grace my bare Shed walls. It would mean making him a seperate vegetarian dish but there's always at least one faddy eater.

"Course, you'll have guessed by now who the 12th diner would be. I couldn't not invite Michael Owen. I doubt he'd have the slightest thing in common with me or any of the other guests nor us any interest in anything he might want to talk about, which probably wouldn't amount to much more than football and the time he broke Grandad Arthur's ankle on the Ewloe Village Green, but at least it might shut the Quasis up at Christmas.

Who would you want to cook for?