A bit of grumbling and maybe the odd curse about "kids of today" etc. and a short while later you were reunited with your ball.

What a strange time it is when the police now have to get involved with a lost ball.

Believe it or not one of our "crime news" items this week read:
"Some time on either June 23 or 24, a football was put into a garden storage unit belonging to a resident in Dollyfelin, Welshpool.

If the owner wishes to retrieve the ball, contact Welshpool Police on 0845 330 200, and quote reference DWW/0483/24/06/2008/01/C.

If anyone knows how it ended up in the storage unit, could they also get in touch."

What on earth is all that about. Surely those pesky kids could have just asked for their ball back and saved a lot of police time.

***

SORRY, but I've got another bit of a rant about the "youth of today".

A member of staff went for a long walk at the weekend and popped in for some chips at what he said appeared to be "the only chip shop open in Wales on Sunday night at around 10pm".

Inside the chippy at Llangollen there were some excited but very friendly American students over on an exchange from Philadelphia.

After a few language difficulties with the poor Turkish chap behind the counter over what was a "short order of fries", the American kids were happy and chatty with the locals once they'd got their pizzas and some chips.

Outside a party of local youths went loudly by, clearly the worse for wear after a night on the beer.

A girl proceeded to throw up within sight of the chippy.
"Welcome to Wales," someone said rather cynically!

***

REMEMBER our campaign to try to save our schools from closure.

Well the people of Llangurig may have lost their battle to save their school, but they're showing great dignity in defeat.

They plan to mark the historic closure of their school with a hog roast and commemorative picture. The details are on Page 13. Good luck to them.

***

WHATEVER your views on the current state of our National Health Service, you have to admit it's a good sight better than our grandparents ever knew or would have expected.

In spite of any shortcomings our free service is still the envy of many countries.

As First Minister Rhodri Morgan says: "Everyone who lives in the UK owes our own Aneurin Bevan a huge debt of gratitude for having the remarkable foresight and courage to introduce the NHS 60 years ago."

I quite agree.

Over the next few weeks we aim to highlight the work carried out across our patch by our splendid NHS workers.

***

WELL it looks like Wales is certainly missing out on Olympic gold!

Research by Lib Dems, and raised in parliament by Jenny Willott MP, has found that Wales is losing out to other parts of the UK, in particular London and the South East, when it comes to securing contracts for the 2012 Olympics.

Despite having nearly 5% of the UK's businesses, Wales has gained just 0.3% of the contracts so far.

By contrast, London and the South East have won nearly 70 per cent of the contracts awarded so far!

This seems incredibly unfair as we are all contributing to the cost of these Olympics.

Let's hope some of our sharp-nosed Welsh business people can make up some ground.

The 2012 business website can be found at: http://www.london2012.com/business