Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday brings a palace squabble over a bed nobody shall be sleeping in, a pizza alibi that has now been formally investigated and found entirely lacking in evidence, and a patriot of the people whose personal arrangements turn out to be rather more generously funded than he saw fit to mention. All this, and a moment of genuine grace besides - but you shall have to read on to discover which story earns it.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday the Grand Assembly returns from recess bearing documents of extraordinary volume, a court has declared common sense the winner of a £100 million dispute, and a personal trainer has been awarded a small fortune for the crime of an empty chair. There is, besides all this, a whiteboard in Nottingham that this Author cannot shake from her thoughts - and which every person of conscience ought to know about.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Author has rarely sat down to a dispatch so laden with grief and gravity as today's, and yet - tucked amongst the tragedies - a former prince's admirers remain conspicuously unwilling to assist British authorities, and the government has announced a grand expansion of apothecary powers for five ailments it has not yet thought to name. Friday, it seems, keeps its most extraordinary cards closest to its chest.