Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday brings a verdict that shall shake the very foundations of the sporting world, a cabinet feud conducted with the barely concealed glee of a public dressing-down, and news of a £111 million windfall for one very fortunate anonymous soul. This Author has opinions on all of it - and she is not, unlike certain prime ministers, inclined to delay.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday delivers quite the spectacle - a cancer target quietly collapsing, a mayor given the power to lighten your purse at every hotel check-in, and thirty bewildered souls confronting what they believed were migrants but were, in fact, a touring cricket team. This Author's toast grew cold long before the morning's dispatches were finished, and she suspects yours may too.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday brings two empty chairs in Manchester, a laundry room with ambitions of becoming a cell, and a First Minister of North Britain who has discovered the art of embracing change - though not quite yet. This Author has much to report, and very little of it is comfortable.