Dearest Gentle Reader, this very morning brings word of an audacious shadow industry, a checkout fee that has enraged eighty thousand learner drivers, and a defence secretary dispatching one hundred and twenty thousand drones before luncheon. Whether the Kingdom's affairs are conducted with more ingenuity in its law firms or its corridors of power, This Author leaves entirely to your judgement.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday brings a historic conviction from North Britain, a Prime Minister composing essays somewhere between Jeddah and Qatar, and a car wash in the Principality that has been moonlighting as the most reviewed smuggling operation in Europe. This Author's eyebrow has not lowered once since breakfast, and she does not expect it to do so before nightfall.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday brings economic prophecies dark enough to make one's teacup tremble, shadow ships lurking in the Channel, and a corporate resignation that speaks volumes - mostly in the language of shoes. This Author has studied the day's dispatches with great care, and she invites you to draw rather closer, for the news is not fit to shout across a ballroom.