Just the news people needed heading into the winter – The hosepipe ban in London is officially over having started way back on the 24th August. Sadly the Petunia’s, Marigold’s and Carnations are well and truly dead on my patio and washing the car is certainly out of the question in these arctic conditions but alas, your hosepipe is now your prerogative.

Today was more about the footie than the FTSE as England kicked off their World Cup campaign with a resounding win against Iran. It’s possibly a coincidence but from 1pm the phones stopped ringing, stocks stopped moving and volumes had a sharp decline. Deliveroo pop-up offers grabbing the attention instead as the Redburn office settled in to watch – step up Mr Quick with Dominos for the team and the steam coming off them as the rider dropped them off confirmation that we’re witnessing a World Cup in the winter.

This was a big moment for the UK, made even more so by the lingering smell of failure by the previous attempt and Mr Hunt did a pretty good job in our view. The split is an even mix between tax rises and spending cuts, with the former coming in earlier and the latter come in later. There is a reduction of the limit when the highest tax is paid as well as freezing of allowances of capital gains tax all of which were largely expected.

Now I know it’s still quite a while until Christmas and I got a booed off quite unanimously by the team this morning but with inflation where it is, I for one will be taking advantage of Bailey’s at £10 for a litre down from £22 at Sainsbury’s. Nothing better than a little glass with a couple ice cubes in the run up to Christmas in my opinion. Not only did it resonate with my thrifty side but with headline inflation at 11.1% YoY these sort of deals need to be scooped up.

Being famous at birth is usually a tag reserved for celebrity offspring but for Venice Mabansag born in Manilla today it came for another reason. This baby girl is claimed to be the 8 billionth person in the world though how you measure that I do not know. It has taken 12 years to grow by the latest billion but we are there and it means each of us makes up just 0.0000000125% of the population – something to make us all feel rather insignificant and significant at the same time.

A loud call for VAR in the Redburn office today as Quicky picked out France in the World Cup Sweepstake whilst I managed to get my hands on Holland and left the likes of Tunisia to some of our colleagues who were slightly less happy with the outcome. Tough luck is what I say, that’s the way the cookie crumbles but we are still waiting for the picker of Ecuador to come forth and fear I may be left with them too!

Now the tube strikes made things slightly trickier to be in the office today but one of my favourite things is the 30min conversation with the usually ever-chatty cabby – full of stories, likely only some true but they do have an amazing ability to take your mind in directions you weren’t expecting. With inflation biting a cab ride is a rare treat I must add but I do love it. In all honesty he could have taken me on a sight seeing tour of London if he’d got me back by 1pm as the morning was really nothing to write home about, certainly not much I deemed worthy of putting in here.

The handy thing about the U.S. Midterm elections throughout the night was that they were the only thing that I could find to help my little one get back to sleep at 3am. The perfect mix of not much really going on, some quite dull presenting and a few claps and cheers here and there – it really isn’t that exciting is it!? I may have been hasty to say yesterday that we’ll know more by the morning, because it will take some time to conclude with December run-offs now likely for at least one seat.

Back from sunny Scotland (and that remark isn’t even facetious) after a long weekend drinking whisky, eating haggis and playing golf (amongst other non-cliché things) and was feeling quite constructive this morning when I caught up on what had gone over the past couple of sessions. Maybe it’s the constant darkness we now find ourselves in outside of trading hours but it seems that the market is looking for rays of light at the moment and managing to find them.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.. No. I’m not talking about some of Wall St’s tech behemoths that have hit more than a few speed bumps in the road of late, but the once mighty Manchester United. After having ended up 3rd in their Champions’ League group, they have to play a qualifier game to get into the less impressive Europa league against none other than…. The once mighty Barcelona! (Full disclosure, I’m a Spurs fan who have not only next to no silverware ever, but also lost to Man Uts 2-0 recently).