IT is difficult to know where to start this week!

First of all, there is the mysterious tale of the MP and the litter sack. Without passing comment on who dumped the rubbish bags and when, at least it is comforting to know there can't have been anything too strange in there or, judging by the speed of the leak to the papers, we are sure we would have been told.

Then we learn the council has underspent its budget by more than £1m, annoying some councillors who spent days debating it and pondering if they could afford a £3.50 paint job on a village sign.

It seems mysterious that the highly-paid experts at the council get their budget estimates so wrong every year - if your accountant misjudged your spending by £1m a year you would probably have something to say about it.

However, we presume it is simply a case of it being better to over-estimate spending and have some cash left, rather than not having enough. Understandable, but a little annoying when there is so much our money could be spent on.

It reminds Tendring Talk of its days in the Combined Cadet Force when, if the unit did not use all its live ammunition one year, it would be given less the next. This always led to an orgy of shooting at the rifle range as the year ended, where more ammo was expended in three hours than on an average day at the Battle of Stalingrad.

Talking of cash, it is also nice to see councillors voted themselves a less-than-anticipated allowances rise.

In the current financial crisis, it would have been inexcusable for them to do less.

Tendring Talk has long advocated a system where allowances should be directly linked to council tax rates - if council tax goes up four per cent, allowances should go down four per cent.