Dearest Gentle Reader, this day has delivered a fifth prime minister, a minister of shoes who resigned with honour, and a water bill so monstrous it would make even the most phlegmatic householder weep. This Author has opinions on all of it - and on a certain Hollywood wedding attended by handcuffs and an Elvis impersonator.

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, Monday has delivered a most extraordinary assortment of intrigues - smugglers operating in plain sight with the confidence of dukes, a strike designed to prevent workers from having more leisure, and a young man from Wolverhampton who has just rewritten a century of golfing history. This Author's tea has gone cold, but she would not have missed a single dispatch for the world.