Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday brings with it a most troubling trio - women failed by those sworn to heal them, a village poisoned by the very pans it once cooked in, and a gentleman with a knife making rather free with a boat in the Channel. There is also a government proposal so breathtakingly self-unaware that this Author had to read it twice to be certain it was not satire. You will wish to read every word.

Dearest Gentle Reader, today's dispatches bring a single syllable of foreign policy, a £1.3 billion campaign of lies, and a farming scheme that vanished faster than one's composure at an Oasis ticket sale. This Author also has thoughts on black velvet jackets, pearl earrings, and what it means to inherit a situation - whether one is a prime minister or merely the recipient of a slightly damp umbrella.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday brings a Prime Minister seeking common ground across the Atlantic, a Chancellor whose numbers are doing something deeply unpleasant, and a reform that may - or may not - finally save you from paying a king's ransom for your spaniel's prescription. This Author has opinions on all of it, and she has not spared the ink.