* David Marmel, the American organizer and creative genius behind the Mrs. World pageant, jumped on the stage with an urgent "My Empire is crumbling!" look about him. [... He] ran around frantically, intercepted a middle-aged woman climbing onto the stage to give Mrs. Costa Rica flowers, and pushed her down a small stairwell. Literally pushed her. She fell hard and landed on her butt, looking more shocked than hurt.

* Bob shook his head and, referring to the Israeli sash-bearer, said, "That was her only job, that's what we pay her for!"

* The co-host, Tanya Gevorkyan, an MTV vee-jay, had a poor command of English and was regularly translating the exact opposite of what Thicke said. Her low point was when two black choreographers were rearranging the contestants' positions and she adlibbed, "Girls, watch your jewels!"

* With 11 contestants left, Thicke said that the contestants had voted either Mrs. Ukraine or Mrs. Thailand off -- a lie -- and brought them both to the mike. The suspense was undermined by the fact that Mrs. Ukraine didn't understand him when he asked who would want to vote her off, so she answered in a non sequitur. It got uglier when Mrs. Thailand gave a teary answer that she hadn't signed up for a reality TV show and that everyone was a winner in her eyes. Her words went untranslated for the Russian audience, but the entire hall burst into the loudest cheers of the night. And Mrs. Ukraine got the boot.

* The contest itself [was] flawed from the start. Contestants ranged in age from 18 to 40 and had anywhere from zero to eight kids. Mrs. China, an impossibly tall and thin 19-year-old, just got married this January. Mrs. New Zealand has eight kids and crow's feet.

* Things got off to a rough start from the very beginning, when 20 of the 54 contestants (including Mrs. Afghanistan) were denied visas into Russia. Nonetheless, the determined organizers plowed ahead with the abridged contestant list.

* Mrs. World's $28,000 diamond tiara got held up by customs until literally hours before the contest. [...] Mrs. Finland, a curvy model who came in third, received only a commemorative medal that says "St. Petersburg 2006." The husband of Mrs. New Zealand wrote me that his wife had gotten one, too, and said, "I presume they got it at the hotel gift store."

* Earlier, I alluded to Russian management. As far as I could tell, this consisted of certain organizers drinking at least one bottle of whiskey a day (per person), and occasionally calling over subordinates and harassing them.

* While the women were put up for free, they were responsible for paying their way to Russia themselves and buying their own evening gowns. Mrs. New Zealand's husband told me, "Most would still be poorer if they were given $10,000."

* The Russian side looked at it much more simply. One organizer, looking exhausted after his drinking binge, told me at the after party, "Results are the main thing, and we got the ones we wanted."