Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday the Kingdom has managed to catch fire in no fewer than two locations simultaneously - and that is before we arrive at the hare-coursing gangs, the approaching heatwave, or the law student with the most professionally inconvenient travel companion imaginable. Pull up a chair, for today's dispatches are, in their several ways, quite extraordinary.

Dearest Gentle Reader, one hundred and twenty millionaires have done something quite extraordinary this Thursday - and no, it does not involve a yacht. Meanwhile, the courts have been busy, Glasgow prepares to welcome the world, and a story of quite breathtaking courage and heartbreak concludes with a cat entirely indifferent to its own role in proceedings. This Author's lorgnette has rarely been so thoroughly exercised.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday brings fire, collision, and political paralysis in quantities sufficient to exhaust even the most devoted observer of society's theatre. A prime minister gets on with the job - but which job, and for how much longer? And one rather loud television personality has news that is, for once, entirely welcome.