Even its greatest adherents might admit that there have been better Bilderbergs. Not that it was a complete waste of time - far from it. No one gathered there, for instance, is likely to forget Barbara Bush belting out "I Will Survive" from her wheelchair at the opening-night "meet'n'greet". The continued presence of a woman clunkingly but correctly described as "the greatest and best of the great and good" provides Bilderberg with a much-needed shot of glamour.

How long can she go on? Will Barbara and Margaret always be with us? Might we die believing that this pair of Queens are immortal?

Meanwhile, Peter Mandelson and George Osborne stalked the Suvretta House hotel attempting simultaneously to avoid each other while also catching the eye of mine host, the diminutive nonagenarian David Rockefeller. Not as easy it looks. Nor was this the most of the Chancellor's problems, the poor boy suffering continuous humiliation as Eric Schmidt, executive chairman of Google, persistently referred to him as "my good friend, Oborne". Quite how and why the information magnate managed to confuse the second most powerful politician in
the UK with England's most determinedly Irish political commentator was never made explicitly clear. But it did make one wonder about the effectiveness of the executive chairman's own Google searches.

Even by the standards of someone who works in IT, Schmidt is punishingly dull, and when ganged up with his fellow electrical engineers, he creates a cloud sufficient to darken the sunniest of rooms. Yet this collective hangover was feted as the life and soul of the party. It was Schmidty this and Big Eric that as the globe's most powerful engaged elbows in order to spend "face-on-face" time with Mr Google - the irony of the usually hypersecretive Bilderbergians fawning over a man who has a record of their every email and drunken internet search being lost on all bar me. They should be burying, not praising him.

A view expressed forcefully by those bastions of good sense, the Travelling Oligarchs, whom it was a privilege to meet in person. For a while in London, now that it is so hard to find a four for bridge ("Whither bridge?" might make a good News in Focus feature in the Observer), my friends and I have been playing Oligarch Top Trumps. It is a fine card game, with much amusement to be derived from categories ranging from the ridiculous (length of yacht) to the sublime (age and height differential to current wife). Luckily, I had brought along a pack, which I produced along with the port and cigars at Rockefeller's 96th birthday dinner. The Travelling Oligarchs could not have been more thrilled, gustily entering into the spirit of the game and celebrating loudly every time they topped a trump.

Such was their delight that they have invited me to bring my version of "the great game" to a dinner being held in Vladimir Putin's honour. Top that, "Oborne".