Toby Young is a journalist and author of How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, the tale of his stint at Vanity Fair magazine recently made into a film and West End show. Young judged seasons five and six of Top Chef and is co-founder of the West London Free School. He is associate editor of The Spectator where he writes a weekly column, and a blogger for The Daily Telegraph.

What's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to you?

My wife suggesting we live together for three months on a trial basis. It doesn't sound like much, but I'd proposed to her the previous day and she'd said no and I assumed that was it. We eventually got married 15 months later.

Worst public moment?

Best Man speech at my friend Sean Macaulay's wedding at the Chevy Chase Country Club in Washington DC. It went down so badly – I got so few laughs – I developed what stand-up comedians call a "flop sweat". Afterwards, the bride's mother told me I was every bit as bad as she'd been led to expect.

What would your magic power be?

Precognition.

What's the last thing you saw (theatre, cinema, TV...)?

St Paul's Boys' School production of Fame at the Lyric Hammersmith, Jonny English Reborn at Westfield, Santa Fe Passage on Film4

What are you reading at the moment?

Hard Times by Charles Dickens

Guiltiest pleasure?

Beating my children at football. They're 8,6,4 and 3 so I really should let them win. But I don't.

Favourite Cambridge haunt?

Tickell Arms in Whittlesford

Fondest memory of studenthood?

Bedding the belle of the ball at Trinity May Ball in 1989. Her date – the son of a prominent Conservative politician – was none too happy.

What would be served at your dream dinner party and who would you invite?

I'd have Michel Roux in the kitchen serving up the tasting menu from Le Gavroche and I'd invite Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, George Elliott, Evelyn Waugh, Kingsley Amis, the Bronte Sisters and Dr Johnson.

Favourite joke?

What d'you call a donkey with three legs? A wonky.