Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday brings two empty chairs in Manchester, a laundry room with ambitions of becoming a cell, and a First Minister of North Britain who has discovered the art of embracing change - though not quite yet. This Author has much to report, and very little of it is comfortable.

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.