Dearest Gentle Reader, today's dispatch contains a funeral director of quite spectacular cupidity, a Prime Minister already discovering the joys of telling his own Cabinet the word 'no', and a soap actor whose Wednesday evening took a turn not entirely befitting the role of Alfie Moon. This Author's lorgnette has been working rather hard - do read on.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday brings a most curious assortment of dispatches - from a Kingdom too hot to breathe and too dry to bear, to a gentleman of ninety-nine years who asked only for a cow and a rosette. Between these two extremes lie a predawn incident outside a York mosque and the anguished plea of a wife whose husband languishes in a foreign gaol for the crime of a social media post. This Author has her lorgnette trained upon all of it.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday brings dispatches of the gravest and most impudent variety - a convicted murderer who would appear to have found one final move upon the board, a Prime Minister who has relocated the entire machinery of government to Manchester, and a Principality quite literally visible from space. This Author's lorgnette has rarely been so thoroughly exercised.