Charlie Skelton signs off from Bilderberg 2010

As Bilderberg 2010 dawns, the usual bunch of crusty misfits gathers at the hotel gates to protest. Your face is filthy! Have a bath! Photograph: Alex Amengual Photograph: guardian.co.uk Nervous hotel staff are given their final security briefing. "Remember: if David Rockefeller loses a match and beats a waitress to death with his ping pong bat, say nothing." Photograph: Hannah Borno Photograph: guardian.co.uk This is how Bilderberg rolls. The participants arrive, ready for an intense four-day blitz of geopolitical policy formation or a jolly chinwag over sangria, depending upon your level of naivety. Photograph: Hannah Borno Photograph: guardian.co.uk With the eurozone crumbling, the mood among delegates is sombre. I don't know who this chap is, but it looks as if his shares in BP have taken a tumble. Photograph: Nero Angelo Photograph: guardian.co.uk The Spanish are so happy to see Henry Kissinger arrive that they march the streets, singing his name, and rejoicing that he might finally face questioning over war crimes. Photograph: Tom Hayton Photograph: guardian.co.uk For the first time in Bilderberg's history, the press turn up in force. Questions are asked: "why are we being kept a mile from the hotel behind a ring of riot police?" and "how many cans of hairspray do you think Queen Beatrix uses each morning?" Photograph: Alex Amengual Photograph: guardian.co.uk Bilderberg expert Daniel Estulin entrances the crowd with his impression of the Count from Sesame Street. This is him revealing to the world that I'm an MI6 agent. Thanks Daniel! Photograph: Nero Angelo Photograph: guardian.co.uk Spanish anger at the meeting builds. This girl was up all night, making her sign protesting at the Nuevo Orden Mundial. I'm worried that the L of "Bilderbergs" is falling off. She needed better glue. Photograph: Tom Hayton Photograph: guardian.co.uk Meanwhile, guerrilla journalists head out into the hills around the hotel to get a snap of Paul Volcker in a swim thong. They don't get far. Photograph: Alex Amengual Photograph: guardian.co.uk The mood at Bilderberg has lightened. Francisco Pinto Balsemão (former Portuguese PM, currently CEO of Grupo Impresa, a Media Holding Company), shares a joke with one of TIme Magazine's 100 most influential people in the world, Dambisa Moyo. Photograph: Quierosaber Photograph: guardian.co.uk Others aren't so lucky. Here, the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, Peter Voser, appears to be in some discomfort. Photograph: Quierosaber Photograph: guardian.co.uk A jealous Nout Wellink (1, president of the Netherlands Bank), looks across the hotel lobby, where Robert Zoellick (2, president of the World Bank) vies with John Micklethwait (4, editor-in-chief, the Economist), for the attentions of a mystery woman (3). But who is she? Photograph: Quierosaber Photograph: guardian.co.uk Mystery solved! The pink-shirted vision on the right (1) is none other than Henry Kravis (head of giant private equity firm KKR), so the lady in the tan trouser suit behind the pillar must be his much more important and powerful wife, Marie-Josée Kravis (2, president of MoMA, senior fellow of the Hudson Institute, member of Council on Foreign Relations). Photograph: Quierosaber Photograph: guardian.co.uk Meanwhile, on the streets of Barcelona, hundreds march to express their outrage at the currently crystallising New World Order (paranoid or prescient, you decide). Photograph: Tom Hayton Photograph: guardian.co.uk "To those who want to own the world, the world responds: resistance!" she yells angrily. Hasn't she got good teeth. I wish I had teeth like that. Photograph: Tom Hayton Photograph: guardian.co.uk How to spend 10m euros of Spanish taxpayers' money: just a small part of the mammoth security operation. Photograph: Alex Amengual Photograph: guardian.co.uk Some of the delegates took a coach tour out into the uncharted wilds beyond the police cordon. Any idea who these ones are? Is the one on the right the young Roman Polanski? Photograph: Nero Angelo Photograph: guardian.co.uk You're a mile from the hotel. I don't think they'll hear you. And I don't think they have any plans on stopping. Photograph: Alex Amengual Photograph: guardian.co.uk Carpet bomber Kissinger is the glorious, 87-yr-old sun that shines from the centre of Bilderberg. See the joy on people's faces as he passes by - reach out and touch the hem of his jacket and you will be healed! Or shot dead by security. One of the two. Photograph: Tom Hayton Photograph: guardian.co.uk As the curtain falls on another Bilderberg, and the protesters wend their way home. They have left their mark on Sitges, and after all the attention, Bilderberg will never be the same again. Photograph: Alex Amengual Photograph: guardian.co.uk