SADLY I missed your April Fool item about the Review being published in Welsh, the snow stopped your deliverers, and I don't blame them!

While the Welsh Assembly Government may not (yet) have the power to force us to read our favourite paper in Welsh it doesn't stop them getting at us in other ways. Currently they spend some £10 billion per annum more than is raise in taxes from the Welsh, funded from – the rest of us! That's two per cent of all the taxes we pay.

It is nearly impossible to work out exactly how much they actually spend on promoting the Welsh language (they hide the numbers in thousands of little "pockets"), but it is widely estimated that it is equivalent to building and equipping a brand new hospital every year. However I'm sure the generous residents of the Forest are more than happy to chip in twopence in the pound for this worthwhile activity.

Oh, wait a minute, isn't that about the same cost as the new parking charges? Anyone up for a working party to repair Offa's Dyke?

– John Theophilus, Lydbrook.