Guests seated next to each other should have something in common, whether it is a hobby or home state, to spark conversation at the beginning. (Ms. Fierro typically introduces seatmates to each other at casual cocktails before dinner.) While she says she enjoys intellectual conversation at the table, she's wary of heated debates.

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It is a rarefied world where the next meeting or event holds the promise of a thought-provoking conversation or an intellectual adventure, but I seldom feel as inspired as I felt this week.

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Mr Cox, a former television presenter, is loquacious and intellectual, a fastidious dresser with a taste for outsized cufflinks, who spatters his conversation equally with French phrases and Anglo-Saxon oaths.

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