Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday brings a record that nobody wished to see broken, a counter-terror operation at an airbase so significant it once stood ready for the American space shuttle, and a Prime Minister with a splendid vision he would rather not explain quite yet. There is also an eleven-year-old who is already making history while the rest of us are still making tea - and that, at least, is cause for genuine delight.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday has delivered privacy violations most unseemly, a neighbourhood drowned by its own plumbing, and a runway that may arrive sometime around the next coronation - yet somehow it is a waterlogged Labrador dangling above a Yorkshire gorge that provides the day's only unambiguous triumph. This Author has opinions on all of it, and she has not spared a single one.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday brings a verdict that shall shake the very foundations of the sporting world, a cabinet feud conducted with the barely concealed glee of a public dressing-down, and news of a £111 million windfall for one very fortunate anonymous soul. This Author has opinions on all of it - and she is not, unlike certain prime ministers, inclined to delay.