Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday brings marriages built on treachery, miracle cures that are nothing of the sort, and a Duchess who has suffered - she wishes you to know - more than any soul alive. This Author has opinions on all of it, and the tea has gone quite cold in the telling.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday has arrived armed with declarations of national peril, institutional catastrophe, and - most improbably - a reformed rock musician. The corridors of power tremble, the antipodes receive their most commercially minded visitors, and a gentleman who once scorned an honour now wishes to bring flowers and apologise. Your column awaits.

Dearest Gentle Reader, This Author's teacup very nearly shattered upon the floor this morning, so breathless were the dispatches that arrived - one involving warships and a dragon that may yet breathe fire, another a most improbable party reaching for the atomic forge, and a third so delicious it simply must be read to be believed. Do not dare let this day pass uninformed.