Dearest Gentle Reader, Thursday has delivered, in the space of a single afternoon, a footballing collapse of historic proportions, a political farewell conducted with surprising dignity, and a digital platform that apparently cannot tell a child from an adult. This Author has opinions on all three - and they are not, she warns you, entirely restrained.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday brings dispatches of the gravest and most varied sort - a murder investigation that has stretched from Dartmoor to South Yorkshire, a Chancellor dispensing parting wisdom with a smile that does not quite reach her eyes, and a Kingdom that is, quite literally, on fire. This Author has much to set before you, and not all of it will be easy reading - though she promises to make it as bearable as the heat permits.

Dearest Gentle Reader, the Bayeux Tapestry has come home after nine centuries abroad - and it is not the only thing returning to these shores under somewhat fraught circumstances this Friday. A duchess un-appears from an itinerary, a political party finds its finances the subject of constabulary interest, and someone is attempting to sell you a fan for seventy pounds. Your devoted observer has been taking notes.