Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday has arrived with ninety thousand darkened homes, a Budget so secret its authors sign oaths of silence, and a knighthood the Prince of Wales describes as the easiest decision in living memory - and that is before we reach the whale. This Author has much to report, and restrains herself only with the greatest of effort.

Breakfasting this morning, This Author paused over her kedgeree to read of a Bradford solicitor who had devised a scheme so brazen, so magnificently impudent, that one’s toast went quite cold in admiration before the…

Dearest Gentle Reader, today's dispatches bring a single syllable of foreign policy, a £1.3 billion campaign of lies, and a farming scheme that vanished faster than one's composure at an Oasis ticket sale. This Author also has thoughts on black velvet jackets, pearl earrings, and what it means to inherit a situation - whether one is a prime minister or merely the recipient of a slightly damp umbrella.