Dearest Gentle Reader, Tuesday has delivered unto this Author a dispatch so rich in outrage and indignity that even her fourth cup of tea could not steady the nerves. A television programme stands accused of the most serious wrongdoing, a wrongfully imprisoned man is asked to foot his own bill for freedom, and the high street turns out to have been considerably more criminal than one ever imagined whilst browsing for a pastry. Brace yourself.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday brings revelations most extraordinary - corner shops with a rather more creative product range than one might expect, a £662 million handshake across the Channel that has caused no small controversy, and a former prime minister with some thoroughly convenient concerns about the very industry now signing his pay cheques. This Author's eyebrows have scarcely had a moment's rest.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday brings gangs stripping shelves of steak, a national breakfast preserve stripped of its very identity, and legislators learning to treat death threats as merely another Monday morning inconvenience. There is, too, a story of such quiet human courage that even this Author was obliged to pause - and that, Gentle Reader, almost never happens.