Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday delivers a courtroom reckoning long overdue, a prime-minister-in-waiting who has discovered the precise dimensions of 'some room', and a doner kebab revelation that will alter your late-night dining habits permanently. This Author has investigated, raised an eyebrow, and - in one instance at least - set aside her wit entirely in favour of something rather more serious.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday brings a state apology decades in the making, a convicted people smuggler discovered living most comfortably in Leicestershire, and a defence spending plan with a rather conspicuous hole in its pocket. This Author has notes - and, for once, not all of them are amusing.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Wednesday delivers a reckoning from the courts, a poisoned chalice of defence spending passed between prime ministers, and the news that your energy bill has quietly grown more expensive while you slept. There is also, for those who require a restorative note of absurdity, the small matter of major retailers who cannot quite bring themselves to mention that the vehicles they are selling are banned from every road in the Kingdom.