French President Jacques Chirac points as he leads the leaders past hotel staff in chef's hats after a working lunch and before the family photo at the June 1-3, G8 Summit in Evian, June 2, 2003.

I t wasn't all hard work at the G8 summit of the world's most powerful leaders. There was good food, lots of glad-handing and the prospect of sickly journalists.

If there's one thing you can say about the French, it's that they know how to put on a good lunch.

French President Jacques Chirac offered his colleagues a lunch Monday that featured specialities from the Haute Savoie region of southeastern France.

The assembled heads of state or government from Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States joined Chirac for crayfish, char -- lake trout -- from the nearby Lake Geneva, pigeon accompanied by new potatoes, assorted cheeses and a soft and creamy cake.

The wine, Roussette de Savoie, was a regional white.

The meal was prepared by a culinary school in Thonon, several kilometers from the summit site.

Afterwards the leaders posed for pictures with the young chefs.

Story One:

German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was a late arrival at the summit after facing critics in his Social Democrats at a special party congress in Berlin that eventually swallowed his controversial social and economic reforms.

Schroeder arrived half a day after the first leaders, but was made to feel welcome by his buddy and host, French President Jacques Chirac.

Chirac congratulated him on getting his reforms adopted. At which point, everyone clapped. Including US President George W. Bush, whose relations with Schroeder haven't been rosy since they fell out over Iraq.

"I looked around to see who was clapping," a German official breathlessly told reporters. "They were all clapping."

Bush also shook Schroeder's hand, German sources added.

Story Two:

French President Jacques Chirac greets the the President of Nigeria Olusegun Obasanjo following Obasanjo's arrival in Evian France Sunday June 1, 2003 to attend the G8 summit.

Time waits for no man, so the expression goes, not even if your name is Olusegun Obasanjo, you're president of Nigeria and you've got a plane waiting for you at Geneva airport.

After dinner-table talks that obviously ended well past the dessert stage, the leader of Africa's most populous nation apologised for keeping reporters waiting, then again for cutting the press conference short.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have to take leave of you," he said, impeccably polite as ever.

"First of all the airport has to close and if we don't leave we will not be able to take off."

Story Three:

While Bush and Chirac were nabbing the photo-op limelight for their first tete-a-tete since their row over the Iraq war, two other leaders went almost unnoticed.

Schroeder and Russian President Vladimir Putin exploited the photographers' fixation on the goings-on on the terrace of the plush Hotel Royal to wander onto the lawn.

There they divested themselves of their jackets for 30 minutes of relaxed talks, before Putin donned his jacket again and returned to the hotel for his turn in the comfortable armchair next to Chirac.

Story Four:

Bush left the summit early, but the French hosts were keen not to let his departure look like an embarrassing politics of the empty chair.

As soon as he set off for the Middle East after a working morning session, his chair at the round-table talks was swiftly whisked away.

The US leader had been sitting in the front row, sandwiched between Chirac and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

After the chair was removed, Gary Edson, the US Group of Eight envoy, was left to cover the rest of the meeting on his own. In the second row.

(Agencies)