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.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday brings a palace squabble over a bed nobody shall be sleeping in, a pizza alibi that has now been formally investigated and found entirely lacking in evidence, and a patriot of the people whose personal arrangements turn out to be rather more generously funded than he saw fit to mention. All this, and a moment of genuine grace besides - but you shall have to read on to discover which story earns it.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday brings a rogue's gallery of undeclared benefits, a constabulary in need of its conscience, and a royal grandfather separated from his grandchildren by four long years and a dispute over police protection. This Author has opinions on all of it - and she has not even reached the artificial intelligence that now wishes to diagnose your ailments before you have finished describing them.