Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday has delivered rather more than the customary post-bank-holiday tedium - there is a loan of breathtaking proportions, a medical miracle measured in minutes, and an act of heroism involving a shopping trolley that this Author considers the bravest thing she has encountered all year. There is also a royal announcement of the most welcome kind, and an explosion in Bristol that has so far declined to explain itself.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday has delivered this Author a most unsettling collection of dispatches - terror in the Capital, a fashion magnate's ruinous evening, and a fishy deception of the most literal variety. Whether your appetite is for scandal, justice, or merely a reliable piece of cod, today's column promises to leave you both informed and rather unsettled.