Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday brings collision, conspiracy, and a bridge with a very low tolerance for warm weather - all before the weekend has properly begun. A train driver is dead near Bedford, a Prime Minister is telephoning his colleagues in something approaching desperation, and a crocodile enclosure in Cambridgeshire continues to demand answers. This Author has her lorgnette trained upon the whole extraordinary business and invites you to read every word.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Wednesday brings a prime minister issuing warnings he can barely enforce, a Russian warship with a flair for the dramatic, and a television personality whose news silences even this Author's sharpest quill. The digital salons, the nation's grocery bill, and a retired couple with nerves of steel all demand your attention - and this Author, for once, is quite out of breath keeping up.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Author writes to you from beneath a sun so unseasonably ferocious that the very social calendar has begun to wilt. His Majesty the King has been spotted laughing at a replica crown - and that is merely the most dignified item in today's dispatch. A politician campaigning against unsafe streets whilst harbouring a rather personal relationship with a criminal conviction is a detail that deserves your fullest attention.