If the security services have their way, however, none of the world leaders attending the summit will see a single protester.

Flown in by helicopter to the lavish Gleneagles Hotel, famous for some of Scotland's most glorious scenery and now surrounded by a 5-mile-long steel perimeter fence, the closest U.S. President George Bush and his G8 counterparts are likely to come to hearing the voice of the people is through a television screen in their luxurious five star suites.

Gleneagles was chosen, according to Foreign Office Minister for Africa Lord David Triesman, not only for its excellent golfing facilities - its PGA Centenary Course will host the Ryder Cup in 2014 - but because of the ease with which it can be secured.

Situated in an 850-acre estate 2 miles from the nearest town of Auchterarder, constructing a perimeter fence around Gleneagles was a relatively simple affair.

Stretching 1 mile from the hotel, and 5-miles long, the authorities believe that along with heavy policing of the area, this triple-layered steel construction will be enough to keep the crusties out. Roadblocks will also be set up, but then there is only one road.

Any protesters hoping to march to the gates of Gleneagles will face a tough struggle. Though Tayside Police are currently in negotiations with campaign group G8 Alternatives about the possibility of marching along the road past Gleneagles, a spokesman said protesters would still be kept well outside the security cordon.

With just days to go, no route has been decided for the march; the spokesman told United Press International the situation was "changing by the hour." An emergency meeting would be held Friday to finalize plans, he said.

However no one would be "marching up to the gates of Gleneagles," he said.

But that is exactly what G8 Alternatives say they will do. The group is planning a march from Gleneagles train station to the gates of the hotel on Wednesday July 6, the first day of the summit.

Likewise several other groups, such as the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, Queer8 and G8 Feminist Action are planning to mount protests near the hotel, and a blockade will be attempted.

It is here that clashes could occur. Over 10,000 police from England, Scotland and Wales will be on duty in the area as part of an operation costing an estimated $180 million.

Led by Tayside Police, the operation will be supported by the security services and the Army. Stop and search powers could be used by officers in what has been described as the biggest security operation ever mounted in Britain.

G8 summits are often marred by violence - most notably in Genoa in 2001 when one protester was shot dead - and this one may be no different. Though many protesters are likely to remain in Edinburgh, 40 minutes drive away, the most determined amongst them will not be satisfied by pop stars singing to end poverty in Murrayfield Stadium.

Radical G8 resistance group Dissent is calling for "a confrontational attitude," "direct action and civil disobedience" and blockades in all towns and cities near Gleneagles where support staff will be staying.

Each national delegation is expected to contain hundreds of people, most of who will be staying outside the hotel, and it is the movements of these staff that Dissent hopes to disrupt.

Activities will begin long before the arrival of world leaders on Tuesday. On Saturday, an estimated 100,000 people are expected to march through the streets of Edinburgh under the auspices of the Make Poverty History coalition, led by Irish rocker and campaigner Bob Geldof.

This will be followed by an anarchist street festival in the city on Sunday, when G8 Alternatives holds its own "summit."

On Monday a bicycle caravan from London is expected to arrive in Edinburgh, while a blockade is planned of Faslane nuclear submarine base in western Scotland, about 50 miles from Gleneagles. Marches will again take place in Edinburgh, with anti-U.S. protests expected to dominate, marking Independence Day.

Dungavel failed asylum seekers detention center will be the site of a protest on Tuesday, while beacons will be lit on hills to the south of the Gleneagles Hotel and elsewhere across Britain.

It is on Wednesday and Thursday, however, when the blockade is attempted, that tensions could overspill.

Leader of the anti-war Respect party George Galloway will lead a Stop the War march on Gleneagles on the first day of the summit, and he has insisted the right to march to the hotel gates is "non-negotiable."

He told a meeting of G8 Alternatives in Glasgow last week: "We're marching to Gleneagles. We have a right to march on the streets of our own country against the presence in our own country of dangerous foreign and domestic leaders."

Galloway also warned the situation could spiral out of control, saying: "In the worst case it could end in chaos.

"In the worst case it could end in blood on batons and we really need to avoid that. There is no need for that."

Jack McConnell, Scotland's first minister, has insisted he believes those attending the protests will be largely "peaceful, law-abiding people," a different group from those causing difficulties at previous G8 summits.

Scottish police appear to be advocating a laid-back approach to protest management.

John Vine, chief constable of Tayside Police and himself a veteran of the miners' strikes in the 1980s, has promised to police the event "by consent and by facilitating peaceful protest," avoiding heavy-handedness.

However with paranoia rife about the security of eight of the most powerful men in the world, whether such calm will be maintained in the face of protesters rushing at the perimeter fence remains to be seen.

But if all goes according to plan, those eight men will be blissfully unaware of the chaos outside, as they dine on sumptuous four course meals and perhaps nip out for a round of golf between negotiations.

And if the protesters do storm Gleneagles, Blair can always transfer the talks to the nearby Blair Castle - yes, it really does exist - and show Bush who is king on this side of the pond.

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