Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday brings a dispatch so weighted with fire, terror, and sorrow that This Author barely knows whether to reach for her lorgnette or her smelling salts - and she has, upon reflection, reached for both. Counter-terrorism officers have entered the investigation into a most terrible death, nineteen wildfires rage across the Kingdom, and a beach in Hartlepool reminds us what true courage looks like - at the very highest cost. Steel yourself, and read on.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday brings a state apology decades in the making, a convicted people smuggler discovered living most comfortably in Leicestershire, and a defence spending plan with a rather conspicuous hole in its pocket. This Author has notes - and, for once, not all of them are amusing.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday delivers a most peculiar mixture of the scorching, the scandalous, and the strangely poignant - including a royal reunion four years in the making, a record shattered for the third day running, and a castle full of sculptures that even their owner refuses to claim. This Author has opinions on all of it, and very little intention of keeping them to herself.