THE BRITISH Agriculture Minister, Mr Douglas Hogg, sank up to his ankles in a Kerry bog. Mr Dick Spring repeatedly poked fun at his German counterpart, Mr Klaus Kinkel, for turning up late for everything. Mr Gay Mitchell inspected European works of art depicting sperm.
During Ireland's six month EU Presidency last year, the BBC political documentaries unit captured politicians as we don't usually see them.
For six months the unit was given unprecedented access to the workings of the presidency, and the first of the three resulting programmes will be broadcast next Sunday night.
Speaking before a preview yesterday of the first programme, the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton, said he hoped the series would show a British audience that people making decisions in the EU were human beings.
"I hope you like it. I don't think you'll find it boring and you'll, find the characters absolutely fascinating," he said.
It does have agriculture ministers walking through a Kerry bog, and it does have foreign ministers drinking Guinness in a crowded Kerry pub (Kerry features regularly, for some reason), but there is no trace of paddywhackery or "Oirishness" in the portrayal of the Irish stewardship.
For the Irish ministers involved it is publicity that just could not be bought in an election year.
The programme opens with Gay Mitchell tying his tie before heading off to the first function of the presidency, and making small talk with the great and good of European politics.
Then we see Ivan Yates sorting out the delicate EU agriculture agenda, deftly ensuring that the BSE issue does not explode in a way that would block progress on other agricultural issues.
We have Dick Spring ending a decade long deadlock over Greek objections to aid to Mediterranean states.
We see him steering meetings quickly through former Yugoslavia, Iraq and other foreign policy issues, while finding time to involve himself in Northern Ireland talks.
John Bruton is seen planning to move the more contentious parts of the discussion on EU reform at the October summit in Dublin from the formal session to the informal lunch, to allow for more frank and less pressurised debate.
Ruairi Quinn lays out the situation on the single currency preparations to the European Commission.
The narrator's commentary is almost all positive. The microphone catches some fascinating murmured plotting before and on the fringes of meetings.
There is familiar handshaking and backslapping throughout between Irish ministers and their European counterparts, with Ivan Yates even hugging one.
The only jarring note is the farmers gathering to protest outside Killarney's Hotel Europe.
Their now celebrated charge on the hotel is shown at length, as is Mr Yates's appeal to them through a megaphone to allow the agriculture ministers to reach their jets at Farranfore to go home.