Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday has delivered electoral carnage of the most spectacular variety, a nautical health scare that even the most imaginative novelist could not have contrived, and the most joyous centenary this Author has had the privilege of recording. Pull up a chair, for the tea is already cold and the scandal is piping hot.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Wednesday brings democracy to the doorstep, a Princess bound for Italy, and thirty lorries operating under cover of darkness in the Essex countryside. This Author has questions about all three - and the answers are, as ever, more diverting than one might expect.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday has arrived not with its customary dullness but bearing arson, alarming nursery advice, and a Prime Minister issuing stern warnings to a foreign power - all before a reasonable person might finish breakfast. This Author has much to record, none of it trivial, and one story in particular concerning the sleeping arrangements of infants that will make your hair stand quite on end.