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 Sunday delivers a leadership tremor supported by precisely ten souls, a military parachute drop onto the world's most remote island, and a political earthquake in the Principality that has left Labour speechless - quite literally. There is gravity here, and there is audacity, and this Author has spared neither her ink nor her eyebrow in the telling of it all.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday brings dispatches that range from the gravely troubling to the gloriously absurd - and this Author has attended to every last one. Certain members of the Jewish community are hiding their faith beneath a baseball cap, a Prime Minister is performing remarkable feats of political gymnastics, and twenty-one celebrities are preparing to betray one another in the Scottish Highlands for our entertainment. Read on, if you dare.