The trustees of the Post Office pension fund have warned that it so badly underfunded that it may be hard pressed to pay out half what people are expecting.
I have an interest in this subject because my mother is Post Office pensioner and I wouldn't want anything to interfere with her long-standing practice of enclosing a £20 note in my birthday card.
Fortunately, my birthday is on Feb 1st so Gordon Brown and Peter Mandelson have ten months to get the problem sorted.
Of more immediate concern to local taxpayers are the figures published in the recent District Auditor's annual letter to the county council which shows that, between 2006-07 and 2007-08, the net deficit in the council's pension fund more than doubled from £38 million to £81 million.
"The main reason for the increase", the auditor says, "is due to changes in the Actuary's assumptions".
Put like that, it sounds a bit like a technical paper loss, but when I asked the auditor about the nature of these assumptions at a recent meeting of the corporate government committee, I was told that they included taking a view on such things as increased longevity and reduced returns on investments.
As it is a well established fact that life expectancy is increasing by between one and two years per decade, and that we are in the middle of a recession/depression which is bound to reduce returns on investments, these assumptions are definitely not the product of the actuarial imagination.
As the auditor says: "As a result of the latest actuarial valuation . . . the employer's contribution has been increased which will need to be factored into future budgets ."
In this context "employer" means taxpayer and "future budgets" includes the level of the council tax.
At least the county council's pension scheme is funded, even if the funds are insufficient to completely cover the scheme's liabilities.
That is not the case with many public sector pension schemes in which current pensioners are paid through current contributions from both employers and employees.
The result is that in some police forces more than 25% of the total budget is devoted to existing pensioners.
The government estimates the liabilities for these unfunded pensions at about £500 billion but private sector actuaries put it over a trillion, which, for those who haven't been keeping up with the banking crisis, is £1000 billion, or about £16,000 for every man woman and child in the country.
Whatever the exact figure might be, it is clear that gold plated final salary pensions are financially unsustainable.
What is more, in these hard economic times, they are politically unsustainable.
People will simply not be prepared to pay taxes to fund generous pensions for public sector workers that they can't afford to provide for themselves.
Just before the last election, pensions' minister Alan Johnson floated proposals to reform the system but ran away when the public sector unions started to rattle their sabres.
I can't see the electorate tolerating such political cowardice again.
Over the past few weeks I have made several references to the total lack of consultation with local members, the Town Council and users before the decision was taken to relocate Milford Haven library to Havens Head (Closed book) (Fait accompli).
On the same day (1 December 2008) that that decision was taken the Cabinet also voted to endorse an officer's recommendation to close St David' swimming pool.
The Leader, Cllr John Davies told the Cabinet that there has been "extensive consultations" with local people prior to the decision.
Now a reader in St David tells me that part of this consultation involved a meeting with the city council and other interested parties on 26 November 2008.
This is interesting because Cabinet agendas and reports are required to be published three clear working days prior to the meeting.
The Cabinet meeting was held on Monday 1 December and the three clear working days are the Wednesday, Thursday and Friday of the previous week.
So the report recommending closure was published on Tuesday 25 November, which, as alert readers will have spotted, was the day before the consultation meeting.
And, as the Cabinet unfailingly rubber stamps whatever the officers put in front of them, the decision had to all intents and purposes been reached even before the consultation meeting took place.
We are constantly being told that the Cabinet system is designed to "streamline decision making".
All I can say is that the most streamlined decision making system of all is a dictatorship where the top man's decisions are put into effect without question.
I hope I'm not becoming paranoid, but since last Saturday's rugby international, my ten-year-old granddaughter seems to spend an awful lot of time practising Men of Harlech on her violin.
I have taken to retaliating by singing the alternative Boy Scouts' version which extols the virtues of woad over other clothing materials.The only verse I can remember, more than 50 years down the line is:
Romans came across the Channel,
All dressed up in tin and flannel.
Half a pint of woad per man'll
Dress us more than these.
I know this is childish, but it was her that started it.
The unusually mild, dry weather has set the horticultural juices flowing and the past few days the rotavator has been flat out.
Unfortunately, my activities have not been restricted to mere cultivation and the sun on my back has seduced me into some rather early planting: shallots, onions, broad beans and a couple of rows of Home Guard.
To be totally accurate, Grumpette did the planting - under close supervision, of course
In the past, when I have fallen into the trap of getting ahead of myself, the result has been disaster with seeds rotting in the ground and potatoes cut down by late frosts.
Hopefully, crossed fingers and various bits of polythene strewn across the garden will lead to a better outcome this time around.
Meanwhile, having survived the severe frosts of early January, the garlic I planted in the autumn is shooting ahead.
Strange, really, that a crop associated with the Mediterranean should prove so hardy.
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