51�Թ�

“You know, kids in other countries have no choice. They have to eat gruel for every meal.”

During the long voyage, the meal offered to captives was usually little more than a worm-ridden gruel—a thin, watery boiled cereal—or a concoction called “dab-a-dab,” a mash of beans, rice, and corn.

His only diversion was to make pictures using the hard bits of grain collected from the meager gruel his jailers gave him.

Wales' finance minister will certainly have an increased public profile before Christmas when she publishes the Welsh government's draft budget next week - although the indications are it'll be thin gruel.

Labour's shadow housing minister Matthew Pennycook dismissed the government's plans, saying: "If this thin gruel is all we're getting in the King's Speech, leaseholders will have been failed."