Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday has arrived bearing gifts of a most alarming variety - bombers in midnight flight, a prince at war with his own search warrants, and a party leader banned from a country he declined to offend. This Author has barely set down her cup before the Kingdom contrived to outdo itself on every front.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday has delivered a most peculiar assortment - a political leader unveiling bold plans for a demographic that may not strictly require rescue, a government quietly abandoning its own scheme under cover of declared victory, and an entire nation cheerfully handing over £408 for an event not yet headlined, at a farm, in twenty months' time. There are also spies lurking in the groves of academe, and a grave report about a beloved piece of living history. This Author has opinions on all of it - some barely suppressed.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday has delivered plots against politicians, phantom infants conjured for revenge, and a party promising fifty thousand prison places it somehow never got around to building during fourteen years of uninterrupted governance. This Author's lorgnette has scarcely had a moment's rest - and the energy bill, she regrets to report, is rising by the hour.