Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday has served up a most remarkable platter - an unelected would-be prime minister who declines to answer questions, a Navy that has quietly retired an entire class of warship in favour of something rather more futuristic, and the loss of a lady who played a snob so magnificently that an entire nation wept with laughter for decades. This Author has her lorgnette trained and her quill sharpened - do read on.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday brings a royal security drama that would make even the most seasoned novelist blush, a football farewell signed in fresh ink, and a golden medal that fetched a sum quite sufficient to fund a small principality. This Author has opinions on all of it - and she is not, for once, keeping them to herself.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Author has encountered, in a single Tuesday's dispatches, butter where it ought not to be, sixteen million customers and a government on standby, a fire laid by foreign hands, and a television greeting that has confounded an entire corporate investigation. If you believed today might pass without incident - this Author invites you, most warmly, to reconsider.