Dearest Gentle Reader, this Saturday brings an American gentleman offering opinions nobody requested, a farewell to one of television's most beloved librarians, and a Euromillions winner whose story ends in a manner that defies all justice. This Author has also received the most welcome news from the Principality - news that has quite restored her faith in the possibility of happy endings, if not in the Vice-President of the American Colonies.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Thursday opens with tragedy in a Devon field, a pharmaceutical miracle twenty years in the making, and a controversy about lapel badges that threatens to consume more energy than the policies they symbolise. This Author has also noted a new arrival to the ton - unnamed, genderless, and already more mysterious than half the Cabinet.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this Wednesday brings a helicopter in a Devon field, a puffin seeking elevation of an entirely different sort, and the alarming intelligence that three-quarters of the Kingdom's workers face their dotage on a budget that permits dinner out precisely once a month. This Author has opinions on all of it - and several on the common frog.