Dearest Gentle Reader, today's dispatch brings corridors where there ought to be beds, a police commissioner at war with the criminal underworld of stolen telephones, and one very persistent retail magnate who has apparently decided that owning a quarter of Hugo Boss is simply not sufficient. If you had hoped for a quiet Thursday, this Author is afraid the news has other ideas entirely.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday brings a transatlantic telephone call of splendid bluntness, a defence plan as absent as good sense in certain quarters, and a kebab scandal so audacious it deserves its own chapter in the annals of culinary deception. Plus - a royal wedding to restore one's faith in the possibility of a happy ending, if one can only get past the fraudulent mutton first.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday delivers a prince who sub-lets, a machine that outsmarts every virologist alive, and a mathematics paper so brutal it has driven twenty thousand souls to petition for mercy. Whether one's concerns run to royal cottages, university crossbows, or the imminent implosion of the Progressive Assembly's leadership arrangements, this Author has the full, rather bewildering account - and she trusts you will not wish to miss a single syllable of it.