Dearest Gentle Reader, this day has delivered grief most genuine, a royal visit most calamitous, and a bail application so audacious it left seasoned detectives speechless. This Author has survived the heat, the headlines, and the revelation that a letter from a rapper carries less legal weight than one might hope - and she is ready to report every last extraordinary detail.

Dearest Gentle Reader, the Bayeux Tapestry has come home after nine centuries abroad - and it is not the only thing returning to these shores under somewhat fraught circumstances this Friday. A duchess un-appears from an itinerary, a political party finds its finances the subject of constabulary interest, and someone is attempting to sell you a fan for seventy pounds. Your devoted observer has been taking notes.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday brings a spy whose handlers found his machete habit unremarkable, a Duke turned away from his own childhood home, and a government that compared a lifetime of debt to a telephone contract - with a perfectly straight face. This Author has much to say on all counts, and very little of it is reassuring.