Dearest Gentle Reader, the Sussexes are coming home - and this is not a drill. Also returning, with rather less fanfare, is British summer, which has apparently remembered it owes us a thunderstorm or forty. If you thought today might pass quietly, This Author has a Titanic ride in Hertfordshire that begs to differ.

Dearest Gentle Reader, Wednesday has arrived with all the subtlety of a gas bill - and rather more electricity. Today's dispatch brings word of a Kingdom caught between soaring costs, a Prime Minister with ambitious seasonal plans, and a storm that appears to have been waiting two months for precisely the right dramatic moment. There are also fish. Extraordinary fish.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday has arrived bearing gifts of the most alarming variety - a veiled threat from Muscovy, a fertility scandal of breathtaking audacity, and a warehouse full of impounded dinghies. If you believed the Kingdom might enjoy a quiet morning, This Author is delighted to disabuse you of that most optimistic of notions.