A reader has e-mailed to say that the story about my brush with the Ombudsman didn't make the short journey from the Western Telegraph's pages to the paper's website.
My correspondent tells me this is a fairly frequent occurrence.
He claims to have detected a pattern in that these "missing" stories almost always involve subjects that might attract comments that don't sit well with the WT's agenda.
These conspiracy theorists really get my goat.
Much comment about last week's piece on "Adva lights" (Lighting the way) though nothing very illuminating on their actual use.
Must remember to put down a question to the relevant Cabinet Minister at the next meeting of council.
However, I did get one interesting e-mail from a council insider who agreed that the 25 grand cost of these lights would have been better spent on front line services.
I think he works in education so he'll probably be familiar with some of that department's spending on non-core services.
As a taster, consider the trip to a conference in York in early January 2009 by the director Gerson Davies and Cabinet member Huw George.
The conference fee was £500 apiece and hotel accommodation at the £109-a-night Royal York Hotel set the taxpayer back another £436.
By the way, that was for two rooms for two nights.
I couldn't find any mention of travelling expenses, though, as it would surely have been reported by one or more of my vast army of moles if the two of them had been spotted outside Haverforwest Golf Club thumbing a lift, I must assume they are tucked away in some part of the accounts to which the public don't have access.
After all those boring lectures and workshops on improving children's self-esteem, grade inflation and the mystery of underachieving boys, our two delegates must have been relieved to slip into their dinner jackets and black ties in readiness for the "gala dinner" that is the traditional way of concluding these events.
At £55 per head, they must also have been relieved that the taxpayer was picking up the tab for this banquet.
Of course, we will be told that these conferences are hugely beneficial in terms of sharing best practice, brainstorming, benchmarking or whatever is the latest fashion and that the knowledge the participants take back to their authorities makes a huge contribution to improving services.
I'm a bit sceptical about these supposed benefits, especially as, just over a year later, Mr Davies retired taking all this expensively acquired knowledge with him.
Irish question It seems that the Celtic Tiger's financial problems haven't yet registered with Pembrokeshire County Council which continues to pay Limerick-based economic development consultant Dr Michael Ryan some 25 grand a year (£18,000 for 35 days work + expenses) to encourage Irish companies to invest in Pembrokshire.
Older readers will recall my investigations into the dodgy business relationship between Dr Ryan and Cllr Brian Hall and their company Euro-Ryall Ltd.
Briefly, Hall and Ryan were planning to clean up in Pembrokshire by buying up struggling small companies on the cheap and using their contacts to turn them round thereby enabling them to "inflate" their profits.
This was all detailed in a fax sent by Dr Ryan to Cllr Hall on 16 October 2000 less than six weeks after he had written to the council (3 September 2000) promising that any UK company he became involved in wouldn't trade in Pembrokeshire (Ryan-Hall).
This blatant bit of double-dealing doesn't seem to have troubled the ruling Independent Political Group because ten years later he is still on the payroll.
The last time questions were asked about the results of the more than £200,000 that has been paid to Dr Ryan's company ORA International we were told about inward investment by the Irish company Pem Developments. This is a property development company, apparently set up with Dr Ryan's encouragement which among other things bought the Port Hotel in Pembroke Dock which was under threat of compulsory purchase by the County Council. (Insider trading).
I remember a big splash in the WT when the company started on the redevelopment of the hotel almost three years ago.
But, there was no fanfare when work ceased more than a year ago and the site was boarded up.
Could it b that, like the rest of Ireland, they have run short of the readies.
Incidentally, when I wrote previously about his malodorous relationship with Brian Hall, Dr Ryan's solicitors threatened me with action for defamation unless I published a retraction and apology within 14 days.
They also demanded that I pay his legal costs to date (£3,000).
At that time Dr Ryan and his solicitors were unaware that I had a copy of his October 2000 fax to Cllr Hall and after I sent them a copy the guns fell silent.
While ten years ago there might just have been a case for seeking inward investment from Ireland, in today's economic climate, when the prospects are somewhere between nil and vanishing point, it seems like a complete misuse of taxpayers' money.
You'll not be surprised to learn that nobody claimed the Merlot (Damascene conversion?).
Though one north Pembrokeshire reader suggested I was being a bit of cheapskate in offering just two bottles to anyone who had read and understood Dr Stephen Hawkins' A Brief History of Time".
"A vineyard in St Emillion" would have been more like it, he suggested.
However, he fails to take account of the fact that people ar less likely to lie over two bottles of £3.99 than a few million quids worth of prime French countryside.
And, as I didn't understand it myself, I would have no way of knowing whether, or not, the claimants were telling the truth.
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