Dinner parties are funny things. They’re such a good idea when you propose them. You make a polite offering to a small band of people – usually friends – that they simply must come for dinner one evening. You say that you’ll cook a little something – they can bring wine – and everyone will have a jolly Woody Allen film-feeling kinda time. This invitation is usually gleefully handed out weeks or maybe months in advance in an outpouring of exuberant generosity. A wonderful idea in theory: you’ll have the best food, some gorgeous wine and everyone will have a fabulous time. You don’t doubt it.

Then the weeks disappear and it’s the day before the party, and there you are – nearing midnight – rubbing chocolate from your cheek as you desperately attempt to embody Vianne from Chocolat but end up looking more like you’ve had a fight with the Roses tin at Christmas. And suddenly, you doubt everything – your ability to cook, your ability to make coffee, your ability to form coherent sentences and not to make inappropriate comments about your guest’s latest divorce.

You realise that the house is a mess, that you need to clean the oven, hoover inside the cupboard under the stairs, repaint the bathroom ceiling, and plaster the bedroom walls. And you must do this all in one day. You end up spending a small fortune on food because you buy various varieties of everything someone could possible ask for, ever.

Surprise, surprise, I recently hosted a dinner party. There was food, there was wine, and everybody had a fabulous time. But it’s a deadly, dangerous game. At best, all parties retire to their beds feeling well fed and looked after. At worst you never speak to each other ever again and spend the next decade dodging each other in Sainsbury’s over some silly misunderstanding or a misinterpretation of the way to safely cook shrimp.

It’s all such a faff and for what? We did truly have a lovely time but as you slump into bed you can’t help but think: a meal out would have cost about the same and been a billion times easier. I’m all for personal touches but sometimes you’ve gotta ask: Oxford’s got some great restaurants, why not go to one?

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