Dearest Gentle Reader, today's dispatches bring news of a pension policy that is making economists reach for the smelling salts, a royal school run that would test the mettle of any security detail, and a city that has decided the balaclava's moment of public glory is firmly at an end. Whether any of this constitutes progress is a question this Author leaves entirely to your discernment.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday delivers a masked stand-off at the port, a politician who was emphatically not listening to a conversation about half a million pounds, and a railway terminus full of passengers going precisely nowhere - all while the thermometer climbs to midsummer heights in the first week of September. One hardly knows whether to reach for a fan or a lawyer.