BORIS Yeltsin and Tony Blair vied with each other to be the star of the Denver summit but silver haired Boris outs hone his rival writes Joe Carroll.
The Denver matrons queued for hours in blistering heat to see Boris pass in his Zil limo. He waved at everything in sight and some who got waves back were being asked for their autographs.
Office workers near his hotel spent more time at their windows than their desks. "I haven't done any work for two days. Yeltsin looks shorter from the 50th floor" said Lyle Lujan.
Tony upped the ante by flying in on supersonic Concorde even if it had to slow down overland so as not to frighten the cows in Kansas. He also scooped his fellow leaders by being interviewed on the widely watched This Week programme on the ABC network.
Somebody made a huge gaffe however, when the eight world leaders sat down for their first meeting and there was "no chair for Blair".
As the pool reporters reported gleefully: "His British staff began scurrying around and was able to locate only a smaller sized chair, so that the British Prime Minister was seated in less dignified status around the conference table.
"The Brits finally did locate a suitable high backed chair that accorded with the status of the other leaders" but it was too late and had to be given to a "Sherpa" aide sitting behind. This is a summit so sherpas do most of the real work while their bosses get the glory.
Helmut Kohl caused a sensation by insisting on going everywhere in a Colorado tour bus while the other leaders swanned around in the black limos. The US host, Bill Clinton, was tickled, and asked the press "You like his limo? I do".
The limo assigned to the Japanese Prime Minister, Ryutaro Hashimoto, caused minor panic when it overheated twice in the 100 degrees plus heat and secret service agents had to get their heads under the bonnet.
Boris pulled off something of a coup when he got together with Hashimoto to solve the long running dispute over the Kurile Islands off Japan which the Russians invaded in 1945 and have not given back.
But Boris startled the Japanese by proposing that Russia stop targeting them with nuclear missiles.
Japanese officials said they were not quite sure what this meant but it implied that they were already being targeted.
Food and drink were very important at Denver. The local papers gave the menus of all the official meals taking up columns of newsprint.
For the dinner at the historic Fort Restaurant which Buffalo Bill used to frequent, the starter was: tequila and lime smoked salmon with American sturgeon caviar on blue corn blinis; masa tempura - fried squash blossoms filled with wild mushrooms and rattlesnake.
The buffet was: seared medallions of American buffalo with whiskey tortilla sauce; mesquite grilled quail with prickly pear glaze; coriander cured Clear Creek trout; cinnamon smoked Colorado lamb with cider adobo sauce.
This gluttony did not go down well with everybody. There was a protest "Hunger Banquet" at the Iliff School of Theology symbolic of world hunger.
This meant that 60 per cent of the 200 diners got a scoop of rice and water, a quarter got "minimum adequate diet" with lentil stew and rice and the remaining 15 per cent had a "hearty meal" corresponding to the well off in the world.
Meanwhile, the world leaders were off enjoying "an entertainment extravaganza" called "Saturday Night at the Summit" - dress casual.
It was to be "an anthology of uniquely American music, from its earliest origins to its present day incarnations".
A press release was rushed out to say that Eddie Palmieri and Chuck Berry had been added to the star lineup.
In case you had forgotten, Berry's career has included such classics as "Johnny B. Goode" and "My Ding a Ling".
Also included were the Denver Pow Wow Dancers, Richard Greene with cloggers, Sounds of Blackness, Eartha Kitt, Lyle Lovett, Ronnie Spector and Kool & the Gang.