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I hope that Jim Currie, the Cornwall Council cabinet member with responsibility for finance, has an enjoyable weekend and bank holiday. Because when he gets back to County Hall on Tuesday he may well find the department for which he carries political responsibility having something of a collective nervous breakdown.

Today's about the council's credit card. Millions, apparently, spent on overseas trips, luxury hotels and bizarre gifts. Read it, look at your council tax bill, and weep.

And yet I suspect that when the council finally comes up with an answer, we will find that cock-up, rather than conspiracy, is at least part of it. the £300,000 apparently spent on the Sky Hotel, Bangkok, is surely a typo....or is it an even more fundamental mistake?

Even the costs a mere £321/night - or 16,000 Baht in Thai currency. The Telegraph has simply reported information provided by the council in response to a Freedom of Information request. Did the council remember about currency conversion?

The reason I ask is that a few days ago the council reported on its website that it had spent nearly £10million in three months on consultants and agency staff. It then said it had made a mistake and had wrongly attributed £2.5m in contractors' fees to its consultants' ledger.

Back in September I blogged about Cornwall Council's "weak" financial management and the Audit Commission report which gave the impression that there was an awful lot in the accounts which was unreliable. The Commission chucked out words like "considerable number of errors and omissions" and warned councillors that they, and not officers, were responsible. Financial controls were so poor that the Audit Commission refused to issue an opinion about the accounts.

Cock-up or not, there are still questions to ask about why any money at all was spent on things like fish tanks, disco equipment and silk ties. Perhaps it is time to take the scissors to the credit card.