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Cneifiwr managed to catch the last half hour of today's monthly meeting of Carmarthenshire County Council. Anyone with a strong stomach can watch the whole thing here when it comes online in the archive, probably from tomorrow afternoon.

The final half hour included the minutes of the now famous Audit Committee meeting at which it emerged that the Wales Audit Office had objected to two payments to the chief executive. That was back in September, and it has taken almost two months for the item to make an appearance in front of the full council and give councillors their first opportunity to even mention the scandal without being told to sit down.

When this tawdry episode in the history of Carmarthenshire is over, it is likely that people will look back at the Audit Committee meeting as the moment when it became clear that the great unsinkable liner had struck an iceberg.

After Captain Kevin Madge backed out of his promise to arrange a debate and provide "all the necessary papers" the week before last (the same week that he told the South Wales Guardian that the debate would be going ahead), it was clear that anxious passengers and crew asking for more information were not going to end up any the wiser after today's meeting.

Not mentioned at today's meeting were whispers in the media that someone not a million miles from Kev now thinks that the scandal is much worse than he first feared, and there had obviously been a pre-meeting meeting to agree tactics for handling awkward questions.

The strategy was to say nothing and let Linda Rees Jones, the council's acting Head of Law, do all the talking.

The Captain and the First Officer left the bridge, and Linda was running the show. She was clearly determined to go down with the ship, and she hung on grimly.

Peering from under a thatch of wild white hair and over some suitably scary half-moon specs, she told councillors that the letter she had received from the Wales Audit Office was "very frightening". Nothing further could be said about it at the moment.

A succession of councillors asked the Leader, Kevin Madge, for answers on a whole series of matters relating to the pensions and libel indemnity payments. Kev sat grimly in silence, and up popped Mrs Rees Jones to say that she could not say any more. The chief executive had also taken a vow of silence.

Cllr Alun Lenny (Plaid) pointed out that the council was justifying its silence on a piece of law which had long since been superseded. Silence.

Cllr Darren Price (Plaid) wanted to know if the police had been in contact with the council. Silence.

Cllr Cefin Campbell wanted to know what all this very expensive legal advice was costing the council. Mrs Rees Jones replied that the matter was still ongoing, and so she could not put any numbers to it, before she finally snapped. The council had to take the best legal advice available, and she resented criticism of the council's decision to spend accordingly.

Cllr Campbell added that he was being asked questions by voters and was embarrassed by what was going on.

For any readers who feel that Cneifiwr is showing bias and only reporting what Plaid councillors said, it would have been a pleasure to report on what the Labour representatives in the chamber had to say. What we got from them was total silence.

While Linda clung desperately to the wheel on the bridge, the grizzled Independents seem to have decided that their job was to provide the on-board entertainment, with Cllr Pam Palmer conducting the orchestra in a rousing rendition of Abide with Me. 

There was nothing to be embarrassed about. The audit report was excellent, apart from a couple of minor points. No other council in Wales could boast of such a fine report (stop sniggering at the back, all you readers in other Welsh councils).

Older readers may recall that someone once quipped that if Harold Wilson had been captain of the Titanic, he would have informed passengers that the ship was merely pausing to take on more ice for its champagne bar.

So it was that Pam told councillors that they should go back to their voters and tell them what a great job the council and its officers had been doing.

This was a wonderful report, and glug, glug, glug.