There were some alluring pictures of Nompumelelo Ntuli (MaNtuli), one of President Jacob Zuma's three wives, in a fine black hat and veil, in various newspapers on Thursday.
Mantuli - along with various other powers behind various thrones, such as Sarah Macaulay, wife of British Prime Minister Gordin Brown, and Maria Margarita Barroso, wife of EU president Jose Manuel Barroso - had an audience with Pope Benedict at the Vatican on Wednesday, which is where the pictures were taken.
Mantuli is of course accompanying her husband to the G8 summit which is being held in earthquake-ravaged L'Aquila, Italy.
Zuma is leading a South African delegation that includes Minister of International Relations and Co-operation Maite Nkoana-Mashabane and Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs Buyelwa Sonjica.
The Group of Eight (G8), we might remind ourselves, is a forum created by France in 1975 for the heads of governments of eight nations of the northern hemisphere - Canada France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States - to get together and sort out certain world problems, especially ones related to financial crisis, world development and climate change.
The so-called Outreach Five (O5) or Plus Five (5+) group - Brazil, China, India, Mexico, and South Africa - was subsequently invited, as notable representatives of the developing world (though China seems pretty developed to most of us), to join G8 deliberations.