Dearest Gentle Reader, this Wednesday brings a most extraordinary harvest of intrigue - a prime minister abandoned by his own financial patrons, a cruise ship haunted by a medieval-sounding pestilence, and a princess who has reduced an entire Italian city to rapturous hand-painted signage. This Author has observed much in her time, but today's dispatches are truly something to savour.

Dearest Gentle Reader, Monday has delivered a blast furnace of news - nationalisation, a most alarming cruise ship, a record-breaking television triumph, and the death of a man who once commanded the Death Star. This Author has opinions on all of it, and restraint has never been among her virtues.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday brings a cruise ship plagued by pestilence, a constabulary once again called to account for sins of omission, and a gentleman of the digital salons who has invented a most creative new business model - one this Author suspects the magistrates will find equally creative. There is also, amid the shadows, a six-year-old boy who may be the finest soul in the Kingdom.