Dearest Gentle Reader, the Celestial Empire has registered its displeasure, a mayor has traded his civic empire for a rather larger one, and somewhere in the Kingdom a young woman has finally received justice for a most extraordinary campaign of impersonation. This Author has much to report, and Friday - baking, as it is, beneath a heat dome of truly theatrical proportions - has not disappointed.

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.