I've heard of stage management, but this was ridiculous.
"Let me first take the question on NHS pay," said chancellor Alistair Darling, after being asked just one question, which happened to be on NHS pay.
"What I would like to say on the matter," he added. "Is this."
Actually I have no idea what he wanted to say on the matter of the subject of the first of one question he was asked there in that conference centre on the occasion of the TUC annual congress of this year, which of course is 2008.
My mind had wandered to the altogether more interesting topic of whether the dry paint on the wall would dry any more if I sat and watched it for long enough.
If Darling's intention when addressing angry unionists about the economy (not his fault, apparently), public sector pay restraint (for the good of us all, it seems) and high energy bills (just one of those things, really) was to bore them into submission, it may just have worked.
Jeers soon subsided into polite, disinterested applause, stifled yawns and excuses to leave the room.
Public sector employers may have a while longer before the revolt - but Tory leader David Cameron will be licking his lips in anticipation of a general election.
