Dearest Gentle Reader, this Sunday has delivered a shot fired before dawn, a party leader trapped by his own rulebook until 2028, and a comedian who proved rather more formidable at a cash machine than any miscreant anticipated. This Author's lorgnette has been working quite extraordinarily hard - and the rose garden of the Prime Minister's Residence has never sounded quite so sinister.

Dearest Gentle Reader, today's dispatch brings royal confessions of torchlight reading, a Northern Province stand-off three decades in the making, and a liberated prisoner whose gratitude to the state is - shall we say - uniquely expressed. There is also a gentleman of the Verdant Society who refuses to depart, and a constabulary official undone by the very technology meant to protect us all. Hover your lorgnette close, for the details are quite extraordinary.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Friday brings a political leader who managed to avoid his own party's most consequential vote and still contrives to call himself decisive - a feat of evasion that quite takes the breath away. There is also a young woman whose blood has been, quite literally, rewritten by science, and a university that followed a great deal more than it bargained for. Your lorgnette is required.