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.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday brings a dispatch so weighted with fire, terror, and sorrow that This Author barely knows whether to reach for her lorgnette or her smelling salts - and she has, upon reflection, reached for both. Counter-terrorism officers have entered the investigation into a most terrible death, nineteen wildfires rage across the Kingdom, and a beach in Hartlepool reminds us what true courage looks like - at the very highest cost. Steel yourself, and read on.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday brings a reckoning with the sky itself - two thousand seven hundred reasons to take the summer rather more seriously than the ton has been inclined to do. There is, besides, a scientific miracle accomplished in eight weeks, a murderous mystery in Devon with a man in Rotherham and a red car, and a seventeen-year-old who has entirely redefined what is meant by a handicap. This Author has much to report, and not all of it permits a smirk - though one or two stories certainly invite one.