When he came back, we found our poor little truffle had gone past its best. It was very sad."The 34-year-old manager, who bid some of his own money towards the elite fungus, refused to blame his chef for the costly mishap.He said: "Normally it would have been fine. Andy realised he had the keys to the safe with him when he got on the plane but we both thought it would be all right."Unfortunately it was not The truffle is like a fruit. When it is ripe, the smell is beautiful, like the forest floor. But then it becomes extremely pungent and finally it is bland and bitter."The Italian white truffle, considered by connoisseurs to be superior to French black truffle, was found by a farmer and his dog near San Miniato, the Tuscan village some 25 miles from Florence.

Its size was surpassed only by another San Miniato truffle, weighing 1.08kg, which was sold to a New York restaurant early last month.Restaurateurs and truffle producers have worked hard to maintain the mystique around the fungus, which grows a few centimetres under the ground among the roots of oak, poplar and holm oak trees.Among the qualities attributed to it is a high content of a chemical virtually identical to androstenone, a sex hormone secreted by the male pig.Mr Cassini and his syndicate of backers, which is also thought to have included a number of bankers from Goldman Sachs, bid for their truffle via a satellite link at a charity auction. The money raised went to Children in Crisis, founded by the Duchess of York.The idea had been to serve the bidders with Zafferano's truffle-flecked signature dishes such as veal tartare, omelettes and cheese fondue topped with shavings of the fungus.In the end, the only individual to sample the truffle was a newspaper writer who declared its flavour "halfway between that of a smoked cheese and strong mushroom". At present, veto-holding powers such as Britain and France are firmly sticking with Mr Annan.. He has weathered other storms that failed to trigger his removal. As head of UN peacekeeping, he ignored warnings that a genocide was taking place in Rwanda in 1994, and did nothing to stop the 1995 massacres of Muslims in the Bosnian enclave of Srebrenica.

He has apologised for both.Although the Americans can make his life difficult, as they fund a quarter of the UN budget, they can only replace him by obtaining the agreement of the other permanent Security Council members. The Iraqis are," said the official.In the light of yesterday's stirring show of support, the political tide appeared to be turning in Mr Annan's favour. He made it clear that he will not be intimidated by the US, by signalling that he intends to serve out the remaining two years. The most serious charge against the UN is that its top administrator of the oil-for-food programme accepted bribes.As for the accusations that the UN has failed to support the Americans in Iraq, a senior UN official pointed out that the UN reticence can be traced to the bomb that blew up its representative in Baghdad and 21 other people in September last year "They say that we're not doing enough But we're not supposed to be running the elections. "But we've not heard that it came from the White House."Another mused that the White House may be content with a shot across the bows: "maybe a damaged, lame-duck secretary-general would be even more convenient than a new person who would be pressing actively for reform." Prefiguring yesterday's scene in the General Assembly, the diplomat added that the rest of the world would fiercely resist any attempt by the US to remove Mr Annan.As for the charges against the UN and its secretary-general, everything now hinges on the outcome of the investigations into the oil-for-food scandal, with the first UN probe expected to produce a report in January. Five congressional investigations are also under way.UN officials say that the accusations of wrongdoing have been grossly exaggerated by the Republican fringe.

According to Mr Coleman, Saddam diverted $21.3bn from the Iraq programme. But UN officials point out that this figure included all the illegal revenue obtained by Saddam since sanctions were imposed in 1991, and not just the funds from illicit surcharges and kickbacks under the Iraq programme.Some US commentators have now recognised that all the contracts for Iraq in the $64bn oil-for-food programme were approved by the sanctions committee of the UN Security Council - whose permanent members include the US.While US conservatives seized on the initial allegations in the oil-for-food scandal to accuse anti-war countries France and Russia of illegally accepting Saddam's bribes, it now turns out that American companies and individuals are being investigated. "There's no doubt that there is a [faction] in Congress and in the media using a whole raft of issues to gun for the institution, and the way of doing that is through the person of the UN secretary-general," said one European diplomat. "Guilty until proven innocent" prevails in the minds of many of these UN critics," the petition says.But UN diplomats remain uncertain as to whether the latest moves by some Republicans to ditch Mr Annan are being orchestrated by the White House.