removing system menus from the panel menu-object

[GSO <gsowww yahoo co uk>]

Hi,

I'm working on a mini lockdown project (tagged on to the Tails live
CD) and am wondering if it is possible to set up a completely custom
menu system.

I'm as far as creating a menu_object and populating the menu from
/etc/xdg/menus/gnome-applications.menu.  The output is as exptected
but with the caveat gnome is merging the system menus onto the end of
those defined by myself.

Is there any way to keep the menu entries to those defined by myself
alone - though it would be interesting to know how to add the logout
and shutdown options as well.

Thanks in advance,