Dearest Gentle Reader, this Monday brings a most remarkable assortment of affairs - legislation slipped quietly past sleeping parliamentarians, school kitchens stripped of their guilty pleasures, and a gentleman from the Northern Province who has just done something in the golfing world that only three men before him have ever managed. This Author has opinions on all of it, and very little patience for those who do not.

Dearest Gentle Reader, This Author finds herself positively overwhelmed this Friday, for a certain gentleman's paid performances have come back to haunt him most spectacularly, a celebrated authoress appears to have misplaced an entire book from her memory, and the hearths of the nation face a most unwelcome price upon their warmth. One simply must read on.

Dearest Gentle Reader, This Author's column today contains such a potent blend of political theatre, dark tidings from behind prison walls, and absurdity most magnificent that one risks social ruin simply by being uninformed of it. A Chancellor under siege, a Viscount parading his sums, and a death that has set every drawing room tongue wagging - you would be wise not to be the last to know.