Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday brings a Prime Minister seeking common ground across the Atlantic, a Chancellor whose numbers are doing something deeply unpleasant, and a reform that may - or may not - finally save you from paying a king's ransom for your spaniel's prescription. This Author has opinions on all of it, and she has not spared the ink.

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.