Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday brings a foreign president threatening sanctions over islands in the South Atlantic, a British Army quietly told it cannot fire its own cannons for want of funds, and a villainous scheme that relieves desperate jobseekers of their savings whilst they sleep. If that were not sufficient to raise an eyebrow, there is also an eagle that refused to die - and five hundred golden retrievers who may yet restore your faith in this bewildering world.

Dearest Gentle Reader, a removal van has been spotted outside the Prime Minister's Residence, a by-election has attracted thirty-four candidates including a gentleman named Count Binface, and the Meteorological Office has promised rain - possibly. This Author has surveyed this Saturday's intelligence and found it to contain enough ambition, absurdity, and genuine grief to fill a very full dispatch indeed.

Dearest Gentle Reader, the Southern Kingdom broils at thirty-seven degrees and the corridors of power run equally hot - a Chancellor faces demotion, a defence plan presses on without its Prime Minister, and a national inquiry at last names the towns where truth has too long been buried. This Author has much to report, and not all of it may be borne lightly.