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Update

After the utter tedium of the morning session, Cneifiwr resolved to go and get a life, but was dragged back by urgent messages suggesting he tune into yet another car crash speech by the Council Leader, Kevin Madge. On logging back in to the live broadcast, Peter Hughes Griffiths was ripping into the leader's report and its spin.

Pam Palmer, the leader of the Independents, was then invited to speak as deputy leader. She clearly had not anticipated that the job might involve having to say anything, and looked distinctly miffed to be asked to respond. So she fumbled and growled away for a couple of minutes, looking very cross.

This was followed by a serious of unanimous votes approving various reports, and the show came shuddering to an end. With the prospect of many more dire repeat performances from Kev and Pam, we can only hope that the final curtain comes down on their long political careers just as abruptly.

For all who missed today's broadcast, you should at some point be able to watch it at your leisure here. The first half will certainly be an aid to anyone suffering from insomnia.

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Carmarthenshire County Council sputtered into the twentieth century today with its first ever webcast. The technical quality of the first broadcast was good, with clear sound and good camera work.

As expected, the content left a lot to be desired. The fancy dress uniforms were straight out of the nineteenth century, as were a good many of the speakers. After two hours of polite speeches, congratulations and expressions of thanks, the meeting was adjourned for a two-hour slap-up lunch off camera, leaving first time viewers with the not wholly inaccurate impression that they had intruded upon a rather chummy private club.

Cllr Sian Thomas gave a good speech as outgoing chair of the council, and was the only speaker to introduce any realism into the proceedings. She noted with some disappointment that the council had not always taken advantage of her hidden talents, and she hoped that it made full use of the talents of her successor, Labour's Terry Davies. She also felt sure that the new vice chair, Cllr Daff Davies (Independent) probably had some hidden talents somewhere.

And that was about it, although viewers may have spotted that, as usual, the Independent benches looked rather empty, and the meeting began with a roll-call of apologies for absence. Absentee Independents included Cllrs Meryl Gravell, Giles Morgan and Theressa Bowen, while Labour's Keri Thomas also stayed away. Frankly, who can blame them, although some of the absentees often have more pressing business elsewhere (such as Mediterranean and other cruises in some cases) when there is real business to be transacted.