Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday brings a column that ranges from the schoolroom to the gaol cell, from the gravest of anniversaries to the most theatrical of political reshuffles. Nearly half of the Kingdom's teachers plan to quit, a rabbi speaks of a community more frightened now than on the day of the attack, and Lady Badenoch rearranges her china whilst the house debates whose dangerous prisoners these really are - yours to discover within.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday brings a bitten constable in Norfolk, a World Cup footballer who is apparently shocked - quite shocked - to find himself charged with assault, and a man in Coleraine brought low by a measurement of ten centimetres. This Author has raised both eyebrows and cannot promise to lower them before luncheon.

Dearest Gentle Reader, today's dispatches bring a stairlift salesman with unusual opinions on oncology, a Conservative leader with unusual opinions on rehabilitation, and a nation's vegetables quietly shrinking in the heat. This Author has raised every available eyebrow - and invites you to do the same.