Dearest Gentle Reader, Tuesday has arrived in unseasonable warmth and brought with it a most alarming collection of dispatches - doctors who will not work, holidaymakers who very much wish they had not, and a former footballer attending court from rather less glamorous surroundings than a golf club. This Author has her quill at the ready, her eyebrow already raised, and very much hopes your own health is in better order than the nation's at large.

Dearest Gentle Reader, This Author's column today contains such a potent blend of political theatre, dark tidings from behind prison walls, and absurdity most magnificent that one risks social ruin simply by being uninformed of it. A Chancellor under siege, a Viscount parading his sums, and a death that has set every drawing room tongue wagging - you would be wise not to be the last to know.