Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday brings a prime minister who cannot name a date, a heatwave that shows no such indecision, and a seven-year-old Brownie who has, quietly, solved the greatest logistical challenge of modern womanhood. This Author has raised an eyebrow so high it may not return before Wednesday.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday brings dispatches of such gravity that This Author set down her pen twice before resolving to continue - a fourteen-year-old in the dock, a landmark report author calling the government's response lazy to its face, and a young man who spent his university savings not on books, but on fillings. The weekend promises warmth, though not the heatwave kind - much like the government's efforts on justice, pleasantly above average but falling rather short of the thing itself.