Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday has delivered a most peculiar assortment - a political leader unveiling bold plans for a demographic that may not strictly require rescue, a government quietly abandoning its own scheme under cover of declared victory, and an entire nation cheerfully handing over £408 for an event not yet headlined, at a farm, in twenty months' time. There are also spies lurking in the groves of academe, and a grave report about a beloved piece of living history. This Author has opinions on all of it - some barely suppressed.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday has delivered plots against politicians, phantom infants conjured for revenge, and a party promising fifty thousand prison places it somehow never got around to building during fourteen years of uninterrupted governance. This Author's lorgnette has scarcely had a moment's rest - and the energy bill, she regrets to report, is rising by the hour.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday brings a Governor warning of gilded towers built upon speculation, a levy upon the vapours beloved of the young, and - amid the noise of policy and pageantry - the passing of a woman who changed this Kingdom quietly and permanently. This Author has words for all of it, and a raised eyebrow for most of it.