They had 11 hours to set up, and the sound guys still had the mics mumped up. Kerry's kept cutting out and Ban Ki-moon kept coughing into his. And we had 20 minutes of bonus negotiation over who got to use each podium. Kerry is tall, so the Egyptian FM wanted the thickest, shortest podium so he'd look taller, and Al Araby didn't want to stand next to Kerry because he's already short and then he also got stuck with the tall podium. For some reason, the flag situation became such an issue that multiple staff were called in to resolve it (Al Araby was a late surprise arrival, so digging up his flag and a stand to boot was apparently a crisis). As a result, the super bored press that was stuck in the room started tweeting pics of the changing flag arrangements and trying to interpret some meaning (they didn't notice that Al Araby's was on a stool to match the height or that the UN flag "hood ornament" thing was scotch taped to the top of the pole, because it wouldn't stay).
And that's the just the stupid presser crap that "trickled up" from the support staff.
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