Breakfasting this morning, This Author paused over her kedgeree to read of a Bradford solicitor who had devised a scheme so brazen, so magnificently impudent, that one’s toast went quite cold in admiration before the…

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday has delivered warmth in places that least expected it - meteorological, emotional, and diplomatic - whilst serving a chill to those who perhaps deserved one. A duchess has returned, a chancellor has promised breathing space without specifying where one might sit, and fifteen creatures the size of pencil tips have, in this Author's considered view, outshone almost everyone else in the news. Do read on.

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.