Dearest Gentle Reader, the word 'surprised' has never carried quite so much diplomatic freight as it does this Tuesday - and that is before This Author has even addressed the hosepipe bans that persist through the wettest week since February, or the thirteen-year-old who has today exchanged Berkshire for Berkshire, with considerably higher fees. The corridors of power, the emergency wards, and the royal household have all furnished this column with material enough to raise an eyebrow clean off one's face - do read on.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday delivers a masked stand-off at the port, a politician who was emphatically not listening to a conversation about half a million pounds, and a railway terminus full of passengers going precisely nowhere - all while the thermometer climbs to midsummer heights in the first week of September. One hardly knows whether to reach for a fan or a lawyer.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday has furnished This Author with a 15-metre inflatable vessel, a 70-metre medieval tapestry, and a television presenter airlifted from a Devon clifftop - and that is before one has even considered the 658 employers who apparently mislaid several million pounds of their workers' wages behind the sofa cushions. Today's column contains revelations that will astonish, amuse, and perhaps persuade you never to set foot on a muddy coastal path again.