Dearest Gentle Reader, This Author's column today concerns golden handshakes of a most platinum variety, warnings ignored with breathtaking audacity, and a confession from the nation's physicians that will have every employer raising an eyebrow. The fuse, it seems, has been lit - and only a fool would look away before the spark reaches the powder.

Dearest Gentle Reader, This Author's pen fairly quivers this morning, for the winds have carried in not one, not two, but a veritable tempest of intrigue - from processions forbidden, to long-buried files cracked open, to lords cast from their ancestral seats in the most delicious of ironies. If you believe yourself well-informed, you are almost certainly mistaken - do read on before someone less discreet shares the particulars first.