Money? We got nun.

"Let’s start at the beginning. A very good place to start," as Oscar Hammerstein wrote and Julie Andrews sang, with our observations of GK Taylor’s last Strategy meeting.

And what better place to start than with apologies from … Sue Westwood, Deputy Dotty, Murray Who (sorry, Hughes) and last but certainly not least, The Chronicle. The what??? Yes, Dear Watchers, our fearless but strike-afflicted organ apparently still hasn’t given its staff the five percent pay rise they’re after so it felt obliged to apologise for not showing up for the Splash Showdown.

Presumably the Boy Editor was engaged, along with his senior non-unionised staff, making the coffee or else he was just reluctant to break the tradition of sending only junior, inexperienced staff to cover council meetings.

Whatever, LawsWatch wonders whether Mas will also see fit to apologise to his readers for keeping them in the dark as the Diva and the Dwarves try to dig themselves out of the great gaping hole that is the Splash Centre extension. Or perhaps the Diva will kindly provide a do-it-yourself "news" story to help out his old chum.

Having gotten the apologies out of the way, GK lifted the curtain on the Hindson report. In his comments, Hindson essentially asked councillors: Would you buy a used car based on the sort of information you’ve been given about the Splash Sedan 2005 model? What had been supplied to date effectively amounted to the "glossy brochure" stuff, he said, with no hard numbers on petrol consumption etc. He even dared use the underwriting word, which he’d sounded the alarm about in his report.

That didn’t deter fearless Splash Czar John Unsworth, who said he was disappointed by the report but "grateful" for some remarks by the Diva, which seemed to leave everyone else scratching their heads.

Czar Unsworth left no doubt he was getting impatient waiting for some guidance from the council and that he and his mates had been left dog-paddling in the toddler pool since the heady post-referendumb days when "the city was on a [Splash Centre] high". He also made clear he wanted the council to underwrite the outstanding $1.5 million. The Diva thought an assurance would be needed that the money would be available before any underwriting took place, though Ray Stevens was quickly out of the blocks on that one. "I don’t want assurances," said Ray. "I want the money in the bank." And that was that… for now.

There followed a bit of to-ing and fro-ing about just what the council expected for its $2.5 million and indeed, whether it was actually up for $2.725 million thanks to the amount already spent on design and technical work. The Diva argued passionately that a quarter of a million had already been spent and it shouldn’t have to come out of the $2.5 million yet to be handed over. So, Watchers, set your Diva Detectors to "stunned" for claims by him or others that ratepayers are only splurging a mere $2.5 million on this one.

As for the total cost of the scheme, consultant Dennis McGowan wasn’t prepared to go on record saying it would even be $4.5 million (Watchers with elephant-strength memories may remember that it started out with a $1.8m price tag) and he pointed out that the inflation rate for projects like this had been running at 10-12 percent since the $4.5m figure had been arrived at.

But just as things were starting to seem grim, the Diva swam to the rescue and nominated himself for a place on the fundraising committee. Well that's alright then, things will be sorted out in no time. Nobody mentioned that that sounded more like the Kiss of Death than the kiss of life for a project that already seems to be well out of its depth.

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