![Kevin Rudd: he's many things, but apparently not a fan of eating in saunas.](/content/dam/images/g/r/n/5/p/1/image.related.afrArticleLead.620x350.grqgzg.png/1475043638475.jpg)
You know when you pick up a book and you just can't put it down? So it is this week with former Oz editor Chris Mitchell's page-turner, Making Headlines (available now in all good bookstores!).
Following our report on Wednesday about the contentious Whats-The-G20 George W. Bush/Kevin Rudd phone call, we've alighted on another intriguing anecdote in the book.
This time, it's the story Mitchell relays of a dinner he enjoyed with Rudd in a sauna "on the top floor of a Sydney five-star hotel" back in September 2010.
"Incredibly," Mitchell writes. "The then Australia foreign minister and I, both in business suits and ties, were to be served in the sauna room, which was to be off-limits to all apart from us and the waiters who would look after us at the silver service table they had set up inside. Steam off, of course."
Incredible indeed.
Intrigued, we asked Mitchell which hotel the meeting had taken place in.
But as it turned out, he wasn't quite as chatty on Wednesday as he had been on Tuesday and didn't respond. (C'mon Chris! It's all good publicity for the book!)
No matter. A call to one of Rudd's advisers at the time helped set things straight. The adviser remembered the meal in question and said it "definitely" took place in a private room on the top floor of the Intercontinental Hotel. Not in a sauna.
Just to be sure, we popped down to the Interconti to have a look for ourself. The spectacular 31st floor "Club Intercontinental" boasts stunning harbour views and a private room – but disappointingly there was no steam-producing paraphernalia within it.
A hotel source further confirmed the only saunas in the hotel were inside the men's and women's change rooms, just off the pool – and food and beverage would never be served in there for health and hygiene reasons, irrespective of who made the request.
But maybe – just maybe – they met in another hotel?
And so we checked with other five-star hotels in Sydney: The Langham, The Westin, The Four Seasons, Shangri-La and Park Hyatt.
Some of them have saunas, a couple of them are located on upper levels, but none of them, we were told, would ever serve food in there. How curious.
Meanwhile, another former PM went public Wednesday to take issue with an anecdote in Mitchell's tome. Speaking on ABC Adelaide radio, John Howard refuted that he ever said he wouldn't want "to live next door to an Asian", as ascribed to him in a dinner party anecdote in Making Headlines.
"Can I just say I don't specifically recall that gathering," said Howard. "But I'm sure it took place, I'm not saying it didn't, but you have a lot of dinners in politics, and I would dispute any implied or actual comment from me that I wouldn't live next door to an Asian. Let me make that very, very clear."
Ah memory. It's a funny thing.