Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday brings gangs stripping shelves of steak, a national breakfast preserve stripped of its very identity, and legislators learning to treat death threats as merely another Monday morning inconvenience. There is, too, a story of such quiet human courage that even this Author was obliged to pause - and that, Gentle Reader, almost never happens.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Wednesday has delivered arsonists, a hospital's fatal silence, a crystal meth-collecting former Justice Minister, and a hero who embraced a bomber - all before Canterbury makes ecclesiastical history this very afternoon. This Author's constitution has been tested, her eyebrow raised to quite unprecedented heights, and her admiration for a certain nurse from Leeds knows no earthly bounds.

Dearest Gentle Reader, This Author's teacup very nearly shattered upon the floor this morning, so breathless were the dispatches that arrived - one involving warships and a dragon that may yet breathe fire, another a most improbable party reaching for the atomic forge, and a third so delicious it simply must be read to be believed. Do not dare let this day pass uninformed.