On the lighter side, Mary Stuart Masterton would propose "that all meetings with international leaders be conducted after they had given massages to one another," and that the actual meetings be carried out in the nude (why on earth anyone would wish to see the majority of world leaders naked is beyond me - some people look better clothed, if you understand what I'm saying). She also suggests marijuana should be legalized and taxed - I also assume joints would be mandatory at all nude meetings of world leaders, but she doesn't actually say so (perhaps that's just too radical a suggestion).

Depending on your perspective, the comments in Five Minutes range from the banal to the insightful, from playful and irreverent to deadly serious and incredibly earnest. And whether you agree with her or not, when someone like Minnie Driver launches into a discussion of trade because of "its far reaching power to alter the socioeconomic (im)balance of our world," you have to at least be impressed that she's taken the time to think about the topic. And some expect that their words might have more impact than others; here's C.K. Lawford's take on his "opportunity:"

So I get five minutes with the next leader of the most powerful and disliked country on the planet. That would either be the great liberator wannabe or a Skull and Bones version of Elmer Gantry, unless a dirty bomb renders the whole thing moot. I'm thrilled. Five minutes to plead, rant, or lament the state of the world. Sorry, not nearly enough time! So, what's the point? Not to influence, certainly; by the time these guys make it to the Oval Office they're fully cooked political animals, in rigid lockstep with their ideology and special interest - any wiggle that's left serves political expediency and the quest for more power. Five minutes won't make a dent.

Despite the scripted nature of some of the remarks (let's face it, some of them sound like they're delivering a speech at a political convention, rather than bending the ear of the so-called "world's most powerful politician"), there's also an urgency and intensity to what many of them say. Harry Hamlin ends the book with an interesting fictionalization of the idea of the "five minutes," with a guy giving the president a spit-shine and an earful at the same time. It isn't necessarily a book with a long shelf life, but for those interested in the cross-fertilization of media and politics, it may be worth a look.