Dearest Gentle Reader, this Wednesday brings dispatches of the gravest domestic wickedness, a postal service shedding staff whilst still failing to deliver, a carriage that costs more than most townhouses and divides opinion like nothing since the Regency itself - and a member of the Verdant Society whose acquaintances have proven rather more colourful than her party conferences. One's lorgnette is working overtime.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday has arrived bearing gifts of a most alarming variety - bombers in midnight flight, a prince at war with his own search warrants, and a party leader banned from a country he declined to offend. This Author has barely set down her cup before the Kingdom contrived to outdo itself on every front.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Wednesday has delivered a man who will not apologise, a runway that will cost you fifteen pence before it is even built, and a travel adaptor that may well attempt to kill you. One raises one's lorgnette - and discovers the news has, once again, entirely outdone itself.