Thrusting all feelings of foreboding aside, we must say Chairman Larry is leaping ahead with the project, unhindered by final plans (still a work in progress, it seems), broad budget estimates only, the Land Use Application still incomplete and funding sources yet to be identified.

This week the project was still on track to start “before the council elections in September” (as a staff member told me this week) and the increased depth to 1.8m to attract water polo players will be achieved at a “negligible” extra construction cost, although the extra 13 per cent water volume may result in up to 10 per cent in heating and water treatment costs equating to about five grand a year more.

So, no plan, no costings, no cash, no approvals, but heaps of political enthusiasm - like the “permanent” enviro-rate, supported by Larry and a majority of councillors.

The cost? Doesn’t matter, because the current credo is “Build it and they will pay ...”.

A SOURCE for the $8 million the proponents claim the pool project will cost, or the $10 million their consultants have told them they will need to spend, is right outside most of our houses, being the roads and infrastructure that won’t get fixed.

We’re halfway through a 10-year IRS (Infrastructure Recovery Strategy) our now-departed directors formulated and the councillors of the day took to the Minister, hand on heart, promising it would be used only on infrastructure, understood to be roads, bridges, drainage, as used for the entire community.

But, for anyone capable of interpreting broad support for a fixed-term environmental levy as sweeping public endorsement for an everlasting rate increase, it is but a small step to defining a local swimming pool as a community infrastructure project.

Then, presto! Fund the Moss Vale Aquatic Centre from the remaining IRS money, the trade-off being the shire-wide infrastructure projects that won’t be completed.

By the end of that five-year electoral cycle, there’ll be a whole new bunch of other promises to be made and bent to fit. Truly a case of “Build it and they will pay ...”.

ANOTHER rural icon and distant reminder of the wealth that once flowed from local landholdings is fading to lifestyle rather than livelihood usage.

The Badgery family’s long-held station property Wanganderry has been broken into two lots, with one sold some months ago and the second to be subdivided by the family estate into six 40ha-plus blocks, all fronting Wombeyan Caves Road, the road the 2000-acre station once straddled.

With sealed road access and a school bus stop at the door, the lifestyle blocks could sell for upwards of $600,000 to $700,000 each, but leave only fleeting memory of the days when the local wool clip from our western fastnesses filled half a dozen railway trucks at Mittagong siding each season.

Dudley’s 10 thoughts to ponder

Number 10: Life is sexually transmitted.

Number 9: Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

Number 8: Men have two emotions - Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.

Number 7: Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day. Teach a person to use the internet and they won’t bother you for weeks, months, maybe years.

Number 6: Some people are like a slinky - not really good for anything, but you still can’t help but smile when you shove them down the stairs.

Number 5: Health nuts are going to feel stupid some day, lying in hospitals, dying of nothing.

Number 4: All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism.

Number 3: Why does a slight tax increase cost you $800, and a substantial tax cut saves you $30?

Number 2: In the 60s, people took acid to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.

And the Number 1 thought: Life is like a jar of hot peppers - what you do today, might burn your bum tomorrow.

And as someone recently said to me: “Don’t worry about old age - it doesn’t last that long.

LEARNING from Thought 10, one of the (mainly) harmless exercises enjoyed by our elected ones is the cross-chatter on email as they exchange bright ideas, amusing asides and occasional viperish observations among themselves, for their eyes only.

Sometimes little snippets received from outside sources are included, along with (inadvertently, it must be said) the email address of the said outside source.

A careless press of the wrong button may send all the current correspondence outside the circle with some highly embarrassing results, as happened hereabouts recently.

It seems five of them were not happy with recent coverage of council events in our newspaper and it would not be hard to imagine the recent expose of the truth behind the spin relating to the permanent nature of the environmental rate was a main topic.

Oddly, three of the complainants were those representing political parties, so at least we’ve been even-handed by offending them all, to our everlasting credit.

So take a bow, Editor Mark, you must be on the right track to get them all to burn their bums like that ... feed ’em more hot chilli, I say.

DUDLEY and Grace were in bed last night, discussing what yesterday’s International Women’s Day meant to them, when Dudley came up with a light-bulb moment.

“Darling,” he proclaimed in his deepest voice as he turned toward her, “For this Women’s Day, I’m going to make you the happiest woman in the world.

“Oh, dear,” said Grace, “I’ll miss you.”

Dud had another bright idea and said to Grace, “Shall we try out a new position tonight for Women’s Day?”

“Right,” said Grace, “You stand by the ironing board and I’ll lie back on the couch, drink beer and fart!”