Crikey

Despite smarting from number one best friend Laura Bush’s poor excuse (pinched neck, please), the dedicated Mrs Howard has been working behind the scenes to provide her own personal touch to APEC proceedings.  

Janette has soldiered on to ensure that the after dinner mints are doled out to spouses such as Ani Bambang Yudhoyono, the wife of Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and New Zealand PM Helen Clarke’s husband Professor Peter Davis. It’s the little things that count, little things like tea lights, according to this tip:

For a dinner to be held in the Opera House, the demanded table setting preview included tea candles, counter to Opera House rules about naked flames. Thus they were ruled out until planners received a message from on high - the chief fire officer or some such - granting special dispensation for the dinner.

Presumaby this is after the special Saturday private viewing of Taronga Zoo animals (a selection of snakes, possums, frogs, echidnas, lizards, a baby crocodile, cockatoos and owls) that will be transplanted to Garden Island for the secluded viewing pleasure of the WAGs, as reported by the Daily Tele last week.

And no detail is too delicate for the hands on hostess:

Apparently Janette has demanded all female sanitary receptacles in event toilets be removed on the grounds they might be offensive to the delicate sensibilities of international leaders’ wives.

Crikey has received a steady flow of tips about Janette’s hand in APEC, including:

- For every function, lunch and dinner, organisers have had to arrange seven different fully set tables (linen, cutlery, glassware, dinnerware etc) to choose from. Once arranged, Janette has been ushered in with the PM in tow and made her selections.

- An insider has revealed Hyacinth’s taste is more like Granville and Dandenong or opposed to what she tried to create - an international bacchanalia of taste style and flair. Our mole said: Dull green is not in this season, darling.

- Guillaume Brahimi is cooking for the APEC guests during the visit and was asked to submit his menu for vetting by the various powers that be. The first menu he sent out was rejected by a couple of more powerful leaders attending. Guillaume simply changed the names of the dishes involved and kept the actual ingredients/dishes the same. This time it was approved all round…

No doubt Mrs Howard is looking forward to Sunday, when she escorts the APEC WAGs by a special bus to Bondi Beach, where the ladies who lunch will dine at the exclusive Icebergs restaurant to watch the delightfully cute nippers run along the beach.

Any sightings or photographic evidence of the WAGs at work should be forwarded to boss@crikey.com.au.