Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday brings confessions of innocence from the highest reaches of North Britain, a recently resigned minister who appears to have forgotten his own government's budget, and a fungus that has declared war on a foreign invader with more success than most diplomatic efforts of recent memory. Your lorgnette will earn its keep today.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday brings dispatches of such varying weight that this Author's lorgnette has barely had a moment's rest - from a judicial decision that has left the entire Kingdom aghast, to a Cabinet minister's aircraft subjected to the most ungentlemanly interference from an easterly neighbour. And if that were not sufficient drama, a single passenger's carelessly packed luggage has managed to reroute an entire aeroplane to Rome. Today's column contains multitudes.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Author writes to you from beneath a sun so unseasonably ferocious that the very social calendar has begun to wilt. His Majesty the King has been spotted laughing at a replica crown - and that is merely the most dignified item in today's dispatch. A politician campaigning against unsafe streets whilst harbouring a rather personal relationship with a criminal conviction is a detail that deserves your fullest attention.