Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday brings a catalogue of institutional failings so remarkable one scarcely knows whether to reach for the smelling salts or the petition paper. Two women lost, a politician's letterbox revisited, a famous marriage quietly dissolved - and, for those who prefer their scandals microscopic, a tale from a Cambridge hotel room that will quite put you off economy lodgings for life.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday has delivered a budget shortfall, a political backstab before breakfast, and - most remarkably - a marmoset discovered abandoned on a north-west London omnibus. The new prime minister has not yet had time to find the kettle in his new residence, and already the knives are sharpened and the public finances are looking distinctly fragile. This Author has opinions on all of it, and decorum shall restrain only the mildest of them.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Wednesday brings a government curfew that teenagers may instantly dismantle, a British couple in a Persian gaol whose ordeal grows more shocking by the hour, and a Kingdom so thoroughly baked by the sun that even the scandals feel warm to the touch. This Author has opinions on all of it - some arch, some grave, and at least one barely fit for polite society.