Quarter Point

A White Dorking rooster with pure white plumage and a large single red comb, seated upright on a folding café chair in a loden-green wool coat over a grey waistcoat and white shirt, a slice of plum cake and a cup of coffee on the wooden table beside him, half-timbered houses on an empty cobbled old-town square and the glass towers of a financial district rising behind under an overcast sky

Plum Cake, Unchanged

Borrowing became a quarter of a point dearer this afternoon, across a whole continent at once. The plum cake at the corner bakery has not moved. He orders a second slice and calls it a hedge.

10 September 2026