I WAS intending to devote today's column to the story of how I had to leave a swimming pool on Sunday after excrement was found in the water.

But then a nastier and far fouler thing happened to me on Monday my council tax bill arrived.

I was expecting it, and I roughly knew the amount.

But it still somehow came as a shock.

A total of £1,527.82 for the year. A first month payment of £150.82, followed by nine instalments of £153.

And for what exactly? Street lighting? No, my street doesn't have any of them.

Road repairs. No, my street is unadopted and we have to pay for that stuff ourselves.

The NHS? No, that is paid out of the tax deducted from my salary.

And anyway, we don't really have much of an NHS here in south Bucks any more, do we?

But that's another story.

The story today is about an obscene property tax that is forcing legions of people onto the breadline.

The money we pay our councils goes to education, highways, refuse collection and disposal, planning, housing and a few other disciplines.

My bill includes £60.94 for the fire authority and £162.04 for Thames Valley Police. The police bill ironically is about £3 less than the price of my car's electric wing mirror which was snapped off by vandals a few years ago.

So you could say the police are good value. Except, of course, they didn't bother to investigate this vandalism.

They just gave me a crime number and sent me a sympathetic letter.

So, no, I don't think they are worth £162.04 as a matter of fact.

The bulk of my levy £1,140.38 goes to Bucks County Council, based in Aylesbury.

Naturally, I'm happy to pay some cash for my son's education.

I don't even resent paying the charges for the highways I drive on except of course I already pay road tax to the central Government.

The problem with council tax is it's so arbitrary. It's based on the value of your house, not how wealthy you are or what services you use.

It's not even based on how many people inhabit the home unless you live alone and are entitled to a discount.

I fundamentally object to paying so much tax at source through PAYE, and then paying again and again and again. There is never any let up.

I've moaned about this before and doubtless I'll moan about it again.

I know I sound like a broken record, but it's a record that spins round when the absurd bill is delivered.

If I don't pay it, I'll ultimately go to jail even though the charge feels criminal in itself.

What's worse is you end up paying through the nose irrespective of the quality of service you're given.

Council tax departments don't ever give refunds for lousy delivery.

Compare that then with my experience on Sunday at Wycombe Sports Centre when the human waste was found at the bottom of the teaching pool.

They made swimmers leave immediately and sent us to the main pool.

But just moments later, they cleared us from this as well after a swimmer was sick.

It wasn't the sports centre's fault. It was just unlucky.

So what's the morale of this story what's the connection?

At the sports centre, I was given a complete refund because I received poor value for money, irrespective of who was to blame.

Meanwhile, our councils provide us with poor value for money and land us in deep water 365 days of the year, but they'd never dream of giving us our cash back.

No, it will be another large percentage rise again next year.

I'll happily go back swimming at the sports centre, irrespective of the excrement experience because it probably won't happen again.

Without wishing to be vulgar, the same cannot be said of the council tax experience which is far more likely to land us all in the you-know-what.