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Dearest Gentle Reader,
This Author has observed many a peculiar week in her tenure as society’s most attentive chronicler, yet the seven days just concluded have provided a spectacle so richly layered in absurdity that even she required a restorative sit-down before committing pen to paper. The theme, should you require one, is this: the powerful cannot manage themselves, and the rest of us are left to watch, refreshing whatever table or dispatch is before us at three in the morning.
It began, as chaos so often does, on a Monday. The Seventh Since 2016 arrived with the brisk efficiency of a season finale nobody ordered, delivering a prime ministerial resignation alongside a marketing email that This Author can only describe as a cry for help dressed in promotional typography. Tuesday proved equally dramatic, with the sky itself apparently registering a complaint via twenty-nine thousand lightning strikes – a number that suggests the heavens have been reading the newspapers and share This Author’s exasperation.
By Wednesday, the kingdom was overheating in every conceivable direction, meteorological and political alike. Thursday brought what This Author can only call a pantomime of such polished construction one suspects the participants rehearsed their contradictions in advance. Friday offered a monarch presenting his tax returns and forty hospital staff whose curiosity proved rather costly – for them, if not for the snake.
The weekend, to its credit, did not relent. Saturday delivered cement sculptures that even their creator will not claim, which This Author considers a rather apt metaphor for the week entire. And Sunday closed proceedings with a duke requiring supervision he could not obtain – proof, if further proof were needed, that rank is no protection against one’s own decisions.
Until next week, Gentle Reader, This Author remains watchful, warm, and deeply unsurprised.