Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday has delivered independence, invasion, and interplanetary intrigue in such rapid succession that This Author's quill has scarcely had time to dry. From the triumphant shores of North Britain to the rather less triumphant shores of the English Channel, the day's affairs are nothing short of extraordinary - and that is before one even glances skyward.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday brings monarchs in triumph, comedians in chaos, and a fuel crisis that threatens to ground the British holiday-maker before she has so much as located her passport. This Author has also encountered, quite unexpectedly, a gentleman of eighty-four whose achievement puts every other soul in the Kingdom to considerable shame - hover close, for the details are not to be missed.

Dearest Gentle Reader, Thursday has arrived carrying rather more gravity than one might wish, though it has not entirely forsaken the absurd. A terrorist incident in the Capital, a King who apparently outmanoeuvred a president, and a mysterious statue that appeared overnight beside Florence Nightingale - this Author has questions, and she suspects you do too.