Watch Out

Security in the kitchens is tight, and the secret service is monitoring them. Summit observers have noted that the precautions taken around Mr Bush are especially stringent - in one incident, a German police officer was prevented by White House staff from so much as touching the door handle of the President's Lincoln limousine.

Fish - on the menu at Wednesday night's dinner at the start of the summit - is a speciality at the seaside resort. At lunch on Wednesday Mr Bush shared a meal of asparagus and veal schnitzel with his host, Angela Merkel.

Yesterday afternoon Mr Bush was photographed sipping something that resembled beer, while sitting around a picnic table in a small group with Ms Merkel, but as the President has not drunk alcohol for more than 20 years it is unlikely that it was anything stronger than a fizzy drink.

At 7.30pm last night all eight heads of state at the summit attended a working dinner, where the topic for discussion was the less than digestible issue of how to lend new impetus to the Doha development round. The menu at the dinner has not as yet been made public.

It’s Grrrrr8 (honest)

As the G8 summit begins in Germany, Hugo Rifkind explains everything you need to know – and lots of stuff you don’t

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Afterwards the leaders were invited to enjoy a digestif, or post-dinner drink, and to chat on a one-to-one basis, although the 9.30pm time slot was past Mr Bush's usual bedtime. The US President is an early riser.

Mr Bush has had an unfortunate record for becoming indisposed while in public office. In January 2002, he grazed his cheek after choking on a pretzel and fainting while watching television.

In June 2003 he fell off his Segway scooter at his family estate in Kennebunkport, Maine, and in May 2004 he fell off his mountain bike, grazing his knees, hand, chin and nose.

In another bit of summit misfortune, in July 2005 Mr Bush crashed into a police officer while riding his bike around the grounds at the Gleneagles hotel while attending the G8 summit in Britain. The US President scraped his hands and arms, and the police officer was hospitalised with an ankle injury.

Mr Bartlett joked today that Mr Bush did not want to "follow in the footsteps of his father", former president George Bush, who endured public embarrassment in January 1992 when he fell ill at a state banquet during a summit in Tokyo, vomited on the Japanese Prime Minister and then fainted. The incident was blamed on flu.

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