WALES: saturday THOUGHT.

Byline: AELWYN ROBERTS

IT is quite amazing how many people approach me to have a little chat about my Saturday Thoughts column. Many have come up with new and interesting topics. I met a funny one this week. He came up to me at a tangent.

"It's newts you should be writing about in your column," he said. "Newts?," I said.

"Yes, newts", he repeated before continuing in the same belligerent tone. "Newts are a pest in this country.

Did you know that there are more newts in Wales than in practically any other country in Europe, three times more here than in France or Germany and four times the number than in Norway?

"These slimy creatures cross-breed: live together in newt communities and they scrounge the food of the elderly and the more deserving."

Then he shoved sheet of paper into my hand and said: "Read that - it should tell you what you should know about newts."

By this time I was convinced the man was a nutter. He had underlined the last paragraph and it read: "These are parasitic newts I describe. They are Not in Employment, Work or Training ."

He was referring to the seemingly thousands of young, healthy, able bodied, men and women, we see in ever) town and village, who have never don an honest day's work in their lives, but live off the wages of other men and women. They are scroungers.

When one comes to think of it, m) man in the car park was quite right. Ever) country in the world seems to have these newts, as he calls them, but unfortunately we seem to have more than our fair share of them.

When there are football matches Brazil, or rugger matches in Australia, oi cricket matches in India, they're there a; our ambassadors

Come to think of it I have a feeling that our new Prime Minister did say that he was going to do something about these newts of ours.