This week in the saga

Thursday at a quarter past eleven at night a foundation announces that a neighbouring country has used a dead president's voice in an advertisement about tariffs, and by the end of the same post all trade negotiations with that country are terminated. Friday at twenty past seven in the morning: they cheated and got caught. Nine minutes later the country is wealthy, powerful and nationally secure again, and the most important case ever is in the Supreme Court. Then the week turns outward — a peace treaty signed between two other countries, millions of lives saved, and a plane pointed east. He lands in Japan looking forward to seeing the Emperor, and posts that after three elections he is getting the best numbers he has ever had.