The contrast between the frenetic Stormont negotiations of last June and July and yesterday's stage of the Mitchell review could not have been more stark: from a tented media village and hordes of journalists camped at Castle Buildings to one reporter and three cameramen standing forlornly outside Winfield House in Regent's Park, London.
In the end not much business was done in the summer and, at the time of writing, there appeared to be little action in London either.
This was The Big Chill: the politicians were doing their best to impose a news freeze-out on journalists and, from what we learned, the atmosphere inside Winfield House was pretty frigid as well.
"Nice gaff," offered one of the London-based cameramen as we passed the time yesterday afternoon. Considerable understatement. This is the house that Barbara Hutton, the poor-little-rich-girl multimillionaire Woolworth heiress built in 1936, and sold to the US government for the token price of one dollar.
Gerry Adams, David Trimble and Seamus Mallon certainly were a far cry from their respective Belfast headquarters in Connolly House, Glengall Street and down the Ormeau Road.
The Ulster Unionist Party, Sinn Fein and SDLP senior negotiators agreed on one thing yesterday: here was a palatial pile. All gold and silver, antique furnishings, paintings, porcelain, china, cut glass, chandeliers, objets d'art.
The works, not to mention huge portraits of Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Roosevelt et al glowering down on the participants as if to say: do something.
But so far apparently, not the ambience in which to cut a deal. Some word filtered out to the cold air yesterday and, if these sources are to be believed, the three parties, particularly Sinn Fein and the UUP, had more or less talked each other to a standstill.
"Everybody is very civil," said one Sinn Fein source. "The atmosphere is definitely better. No one is getting into the blame game, but as for progress, I haven't seen any."
What off-the-record briefings were on offer were carefully expressed. "We are all anxious not to spook each other," said the Sinn Fein man. He indicated that republicans were back to the July position of believing that the IRA "could" decommission but that they could not meet Mr Trimble's demand for a commitment, like the IRA saying it "would" disarm after an executive was formed.
Decommissioning appeared to be still on offer, but it had to be in the terms of a "voluntary" act.
Equally, the UUP was holding firmly to its position that a cast-iron guarantee on arms was required in advance. "I don't think the talks are developing all that much," said a unionist source. "In terms of the substantive issues I don't think there is anything to report."
Still, the UUP and Sinn Fein were locked in talks for most of Monday. There were further discussions yesterday morning, and when Seamus Mallon and his senior colleagues arrived at noon the parties went into trilateral mode.
This coming after the previous week of negotiations in London when on one particular day David Trimble and Gerry Adams stuck at it for 12 hours. Lots to discuss but, as yet, no sign that it is leading to the promised land of the Belfast Agreement being implemented.
Perhaps, for once, the politicians are observing a genuine news blackout and the line being fed by sources is a deceptive, deflective spin. But it didn't seem like that yesterday. The mood was decidedly flat.
The smaller parties join the main players in London today for more of the same. Then there will be an exodus: Gerry Adams to a fund-raiser in New York, the rest back to Northern Ireland to consult their parties tomorrow on developments, if any. Senator Mitchell must then decide whether to resume talks on Friday, and perhaps continue them through the weekend in either Belfast or London. There could be the guts of a week left in this enterprise, but hardly any more than that.
A sound-bite from one senior talks source offered a good analysis of where we are at present. He said: "There are two schools of thought. One, that the politicians are playing hardball and that at the final moment everything will collapse into place.
"Two, that Sinn Fein and the UUP have reached their bottom lines, and that they just can't deal. And that would be just too bad."