I was standing on the Llangollen International Eisteddfod field with my four year old, trying to join a huge, if a bit disjointed circle of festival goers, holding hands in the name of brotherhood and international understanding, when my mobile phone rang.

It turned out that anything but brotherhood and understanding had broken out at the Finance Committee meeting in Cardiff Bay. Perhaps it should be renamed the Feisty Committee.

Chair Angela Burns had been told that the Deputy First Minister, Ieuan Wyn Jones, would after all release to the committee the Ministerial Advice he's been given on the Heads of the Valley road, the advice they've been putting pressure on him to disclose for some time now. That's the good news. The bad news is he won't be handing it over until the end of term.

That means the committee won't have a chance to discuss it unless they meet during recess. That, said the Chair, was exactly what she'd ask them to do unless the paperwork turned up earlier, upping the ante and the pressure on the DFM.

While the cameras were turned on, things were heated enough. When they'd been switched off the accusations really started to fly. Plaid members accused others of targetting Mr Jones in order to undermine the coalition - in other words being considerably less bothered by the future of the Heads of the Valleys road than knocking the coalition off course. In return one member reportedly shouted back in less than brotherly fashion that "it's not this committee that's undermining the government it's your ... Minister".

Meanwhile it's been announced that Paul Starling, a man who knows a thing or two about making his voice heard and his feelings known - formerly of the Welsh Mirror - will be standing for People's Voice in Torfaen at the General Election. It's unlikely the incumbent, the other Paul - formerly of the Wales Office - will be tempted to raise his own voice in response. That's not his style after all. Unlikely, though, that brotherly love will be the theme of the battle in Torfaen.

And sticking to the subject of peace, understanding and brotherly love, just a thought .What happens if David Cameron decides that his Director of Communications Andy Coulson - formerly of the News of the World - is somehow tainted by the allegations surrounding the paper and should no longer remain in the job? Any number of ifs and buts there I grant you but ... just wondering whether a certain Welsh speaking press adviser is polishing up his CV?

Back to the Eisteddfod tomorrow but this time, to sing with the choir. In other words it's competition day. Just as well I did my bit for brotherly love and international understanding today then.

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Guests on AM/PM are always welcome but a much coveted programme mug goes to Conservative Assembly Commissioner William Graham for letting slip a few moments ago, live on air, that the Commission last night "agreed with ease" to accept in full the dramatic changes proposed on Monday to the pay and expenses system.

Labour's Commissioner, Lorraine Barrett, said that were "bits and pieces" in the report that not all AMs would like but "you can't unpick it". The recommendations are tightly woven, of course, for exactly that purpose.

There it is then. Our house, here in Wales, is in order. The changes will be accepted as a job lot. No tinkering. No unpicking. What you saw on Monday is what they will get.

I haven't spoken to a single Assembly Member who thought their hands were anything but tied - tied by an entirely justified public anger at greed and the sorts of claims made with abandon ... elsewhere. Right principles, they say but wrong targets.

The Commission includes representatives of the four parties and they'll be acutely aware that there are colleagues who feel utter fury at the lengths to which Roger Jones and his panel has gone to scrap and tighten allowances.

Even the most furious accept that AMs are not inately less greedy, or more public spiritied than those MPs who hit the headlines for getting away with excessive expense claims. Their argument says that the system - hand in hand with the culture here perhaps - has simply never allowed them to line their pockets, not freely at least. It might have felt like "a sweetshop" to some as panel chair Roger Jones put it but others stuck to a sensible diet. In future it'll be the F plan all the way.

The Commissioners will have been just as aware that some are happy to accept the new system is just and fair but are concerned that if "the best people" - whoever they may be - are to be attracted to the job of an AM in future, then £53,108 won't cut it. Will lawyers, school heads, medics, any number of officers in local government, men and women with experience in the private sector be beating a path to the returning officer's door for just over fifty grand? it is a rhetorical question but you know what they think the answer is. No way.

But you won't hear any of this, not for now. AMs don't expect arguments like those to hold any traction for a long time to come. They know too that if the principles are indeed spot on then you'll expect AMs to abide them - targets or not.

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Yesterday it was Matt.

Today I'm reminded of Andy Capp and his wife Florrie and those annuals my brother used to get in his Christmas stocking, year in, year out. There was always a Chocolate Orange and for me, the Twinkle annual until I argued Father Christmas should give in and let me have the Jackie annual instead. Big brother stuck with Andy Capp throughout and so it became my favourite too.

One Andy moment has stuck with me. He's sitting on a bench, a beer in his hand, watching Florrie mowing the lawn in the midday sun. "Oh you shouldn't be mowing the lawn like that love" he says. Wow. A new, politically correct Andy? No. "You should be doing it like this. Get yer back into it!" or words to that effect.

Why did it spring to mind? Some chauvinistic commuter who tutted at the way I was lugging my laptop and shoulder bag on the train to Paddington? No, it's thanks to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee and their report on the Welsh Language Legislative Competence Order.

In essence the upshot of the report is this: in principle? Yes, we agree that in future it's logical and appropriate that legislation with regard to the language ought to be made and put to work in Wales, where it's spoken - or as they put it "located in its social context". In other words they agree that the powers ought to be transferred to the Assembly Government, in principle.

Ah but principle must be turned into practice and there, the problems begin or as Andy would put it, "you shouldn't be doing it like that!"

The LCO as it stands lists the types of companies and bodies that would be affected by future measures, or laws. It states too that organisations who get more than £200,000 of public money would have to comply with future regulation with regard to the language.

Wrong call, says the Welsh Affairs Select Committee. At best you'll end up with anomalies, at worst you'll end up in court. You need clarity. You need drafting with a clearly defined scope.

So how do you do that?

"We suggest that a more sophisticated and appropriate way of dealing with the issues of definition would be for this Order to contain clear principles against which the Assembly Measures can be tested. One way to achieve this would be for the Welsh Assembly Government to insert in this draft Order tests that have to be met by any Measure subsequent to this LCO, rather than trying to insert definitions themselves in the text. These might include a test of reasonableness, a test of proportionality, and a consideration of the cost to demonstrate that the application of any Measure to particular
bodies or organisations will, in the long term, provide a cost-effective benefit to the public
in terms of the use of the Welsh language".

I get the idea but I'm not sure what that would mean in reality. I'm not sure the Welsh Assembly Government does either. You can certainly create future measures with principles in mind - principles like reasonableness, proportionality and so on - but can you transfer powers simply based on those principles?

The £200,000 threshold, says the Committee in its most damning passage, seems to have been chosen "more or less at random" and why include utilities and telecommunication companies in the scope of the LCO but leave out banks or insurance
services? They know the answer but know too it's not the sort of answer that can be included in the wording of an LCO. That's the political compromise struck between the Wales Office and the former Secretary of State.

What now? If there's substantial redrafting required - and it's hard to see how that will be avoided - the LCO will have to come back before both scrutiny committees in the Assembly and in Westminster. They'll have to get a move on, just like Flo. The job must done and dusted before a General Election remember.

But bear this in mind: Andy Capp wanted the lawn mowed. He wasn't out to stop Flo. He wanted the job done and he wanted it done properly. Put like that, the Welsh Affairs Select Committee might not mind the comparison after all. Not so sure about the Assembly Government.

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