Camilla Cavendish’s fantasy dinner: Elon Musk, Cicero and Ayaan Hirsi Ali

When it comes to dinner parties, I share the view of Marcus Tullius Cicero that “cultivation to the mind is as necessary as food to the body”. My favourite evenings are those involving such sparky debate that the food and drink, however enjoyable, are primarily an aid to loquacity.

It’s been a joy to return to in-person gatherings after some awkward attempts on Zoom that seemed to magnify the chewing aspect of the dinner party. Yet in 2022, conversation feels increasingly proscribed. So I am getting a group of people together who will be unafraid to say interesting things, and clever enough to keep it flowing. My invitation is to “come as you are”. I am hoping that no one will hold back.

My first guest is Cicero himself, author of the witty epigram, defender of the accused and spectacular orator. I was tempted to ask the author Robert Harris along too, since I’m pretty sure that his trilogy about Cicero has been more widely read than some of the great man’s own works, but, sadly, I don’t have space.

Instead, I’ve pitched for man-of-the-moment Elon Musk, because he’s a genius with a way of making us look at things differently. I am excited to find out whether he has any boundaries when it comes to free speech. Elon wasn’t initially keen to join us, as he hates to waste time on social events, but he says he’s happy to sleep in the spare room now that he no longer owns a home. He’s left his bag in the Tesla Model S Plaid that is charging outside.

We try newly licensed lab-grown chicken, roasted with local asparagus and dauphinoise potatoes

I’ve decided to sit Musk next to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born feminist freedom fighter who has no fear of anything or anyone, and who is also kind and calm. She will give Musk a run for his money and will also add a dash of elegance to our gathering. I realise too late that I’m not sure whether either of these two actually drinks alcohol — but the Dom Pérignon Brut Rosé 1959 is already being poured, accompanied by perfect morsels of tiny crab cakes.

The writer Christopher Hitchens, dressed in a crumpled cream linen suit, is acting as a garrulous sommelier. I’ve warned him it may get a bit chilly as the evening draws in, so, later on he will be warming us up with his signature drink, Johnnie Walker Black cut with Perrier, no ice. I have placed Caroline Waldegrave, co-founder of Leith’s cookery school, with him in the kitchen. Caroline is a fabulous chef, can put anyone at ease, and I am also relying on her to keep a weather eye on Hitch’s drinking. Hitch was once described as “the Cicero of the saloon bar”, but I don’t want him becoming too flamboyant around the man himself.

As the canapés circulate, the former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers arrives, deep in conversation with the novelist and human rights campaigner Margaret Atwood. Larry is describing how much flack he has taken from his fellow Democrats since exposing the misguided economic consensus around Biden’s Rescue Plan Act. Margaret nods: she watches Washington closely. She is lamenting last year’s attack on Congress, predicted in her dystopian The Handmaid’s Tale, and worrying about authoritarianism. The two agree that defending Ukraine by weaning ourselves off Russian gas is the price that must be paid for freedom.

We are meeting at Voltaire’s wonderful château in Ferney, which he bought after falling out with Frederick the Great and finding his works banned in Geneva. I’d been intending to invite everyone to Athens, but I discovered that the word “ostracise” comes from the Ancient Greek practice of voting to send people into exile, by etching the name of the person they disliked on to an ostracon, a shard of broken pottery. This early practice of “cancelling” people, from the world’s first democracy, makes me queasy about using it as a venue. Instead, we are in this remote part of France, so close to the Swiss border that Voltaire said he felt entirely free from interference by either regime.

The menu will be climate conscious, which I hope Cicero will approve of. The first course is an exquisitely chilled gazpacho, followed by a melting cheese souffle. Next we try newly licensed lab-grown chicken from Singapore, roasted with local asparagus and dauphinoise potatoes, and then fall upon the ultimate tarte tatin and a zingy egg custard.

As the conversation gets louder, we are serenaded by Jacqueline du Pré, jamming on the cello to Leonard Cohen’s rasping vocals. We lift our glasses in toast to our absent host, Voltaire: “Liberty of thought is the life of the soul.”

Camilla Cavendish is an FT columnist

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