A talks insider offered some advice ahead of their start in Weston Park yesterday: "Ignore everything you hear from the politicians".
All their soundbites issued before they knuckled down to serious negotiations in the palatial setting of Weston Park in Staffordshire near the Shropshire border would just be a case of the politicians "playing to their own constituencies", he said.
Let's hope he's right because the pre-negotiation comments were indeed as predictable as they were negative.
These talks are about one issue only, said the Ulster Unionist leader, Mr David Trimble, just before he boarded his flight to Birmingham yesterday morning: the disposal of IRA weapons. But what about other aspects of the agreement such as demilitarisation and policing?
"The other aspects are being implemented too much," he replied.
On Sunday evening the Sinn Fein president, Mr Gerry Adams, said there was no possibility of the IRA caving in to unionist or British government demands on weapons in the time ahead.
Another senior republican source said that, rather than arms, the main issues were the full implementation of Patten, demilitarisation, the criminal justice review, human rights, plastic bullets and much more besides.
The SDLP and the smaller pro-agreement parties are important players, but if a deal is to be done by tomorrow, Mr Adams and Mr Trimble are the politicians who must do the business with, of course, some serious prodding from the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, and the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair.
Up to last night there was no sign of any white smoke billowing from the chimneys of Weston Park. Not that journalists, isolated at the perimeter gate to the 960-acre estate, were in a great position to spot any such developments. The governments were anxious to impose a media blackout so the talks would not be jeopardised by the usual battle of the spins. It probably makes sense to take the politicians away from Northern Ireland, especially during this Twelfth/ Drumcree week, but whether the talks can succeed is really down to what concessions Mr Trimble and Mr Adams can or will offer.
Centrally these negotiations are about three issues: arms, policing and demilitarisation. If the first two matters can be resolved then there should be little difficulty sorting out how and when the British army watchtowers in south Armagh should be toppled.
But cracking those two issues lies somewhere between difficult and impossible. Sinn Fein and the SDLP want "Patten and nothing but Patten" on policing, but Mr Trimble is digging in his heels on this matter. It was significant that Mr Jeffrey Donaldson was part of the UUP delegation.
"Sinn Fein-IRA are demanding more concessions on policing. Well, they are not going to get them," said Mr Donaldson with solid conviction. Ultimately it's Mr Blair's call on policing, but the tightrope for the Prime Minister is that if he leans too much towards what nationalists are seeking then the Ulster Unionists might just simply walk away from the process.
The difficulties over the conflicting demands of unionism and republicanism cut no ice with Sinn Fein. One senior republican source said that on policing and demilitarisation "the British government needs to make a quantum leap from where they are to where they need to be. What's there at the moment simply isn't good enough".
Mr Ahern and Mr Blair hosted round-table talks for about 21/2 hours yesterday afternoon, and afterwards met in bilateral sessions with the smaller Alliance, Woman's Coalition, Progressive Unionist Party and Ulster Democratic Party delegations.
These went home around teatime, leaving the field to Mr Ahern, Mr Blair, Sinn Fein, the UUP and the SDLP. This particularly annoyed the PUP, which felt the smaller parties were being sidelined.
But, again, the reality is that if there is to be a deal it's the bigger players who must find common ground. One talks source described the mood as "serious and determined".
What Mr Ahern and Mr Blair were about, he added, was conveying to the parties that if they don't do it this week then the curtain must come down on negotiations until the autumn. And without agreement, the British government must decide between suspension of the Assembly and Executive or new Assembly elections.
"If there is to be a breakthrough then everybody must be prepared to show the colour of their money, and that just hasn't happened yet," said one informed source. The real hard bargaining should begin today, he added.