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.

Dearest Gentle Reader, this very Sunday has delivered a prime minister who will not say whether he trusts a certain colonial president, a defence secretary who insists nobody need fear a sabre - and a party deputy whose company's donations have attracted the most unwelcome sort of scrutiny. This Author has barely had time to cool her tea before the dispatches multiplied most alarmingly.

Dearest Gentle Reader, a removal van has been spotted outside the Prime Minister's Residence, a by-election has attracted thirty-four candidates including a gentleman named Count Binface, and the Meteorological Office has promised rain - possibly. This Author has surveyed this Saturday's intelligence and found it to contain enough ambition, absurdity, and genuine grief to fill a very full dispatch indeed.