Dearest Gentle Reader, this Tuesday brings two empty chairs in Manchester, a laundry room with ambitions of becoming a cell, and a First Minister of North Britain who has discovered the art of embracing change - though not quite yet. This Author has much to report, and very little of it is comfortable.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday brings dispatches that span continents and cross every register from the heartbreaking to the combustible - and one story in which the very earth beneath respectable houses has simply given up. This Author has set aside her sharpest wit for the occasion, though she has by no means set aside her lorgnette.