Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday brings dispatches of the gravest and most varied sort - a murder investigation that has stretched from Dartmoor to South Yorkshire, a Chancellor dispensing parting wisdom with a smile that does not quite reach her eyes, and a Kingdom that is, quite literally, on fire. This Author has much to set before you, and not all of it will be easy reading - though she promises to make it as bearable as the heat permits.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday brings a spy whose handlers found his machete habit unremarkable, a Duke turned away from his own childhood home, and a government that compared a lifetime of debt to a telephone contract - with a perfectly straight face. This Author has much to say on all counts, and very little of it is reassuring.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Wednesday delivers a reckoning from the courts, a poisoned chalice of defence spending passed between prime ministers, and the news that your energy bill has quietly grown more expensive while you slept. There is also, for those who require a restorative note of absurdity, the small matter of major retailers who cannot quite bring themselves to mention that the vehicles they are selling are banned from every road in the Kingdom.