Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday brings economic prophecies dark enough to make one's teacup tremble, shadow ships lurking in the Channel, and a corporate resignation that speaks volumes - mostly in the language of shoes. This Author has studied the day's dispatches with great care, and she invites you to draw rather closer, for the news is not fit to shout across a ballroom.

Dearest Gentle Reader, This Author's pen has been most busy this day, for the realm offers a banquet of follies - a Chancellor insisting all is well whilst the wheels fall from the carriage, a Secretary declaring war upon the very rollercoaster he rides, and a most intriguing audience at the Palace that has set tongues wagging on both sides of the Atlantic. One would hate for you to be the only person at tonight's supper without the particulars.