Tough days ahead. I'm seeing that headline or variants of it more than I see the Starbucks sign, and understand me here - there's a whole lotta latte brewed in London. It's a personal choice kind of thing: you believe, part believe or not at all. As a good fence sitter, I'll not bother saying where I am on this point.

But what does worry me is that the City has put itself on a yo-yo diet - up two hundred points one day, down three hundred the next. They gain it, they lose it. And all that bouncing between extreme emotional states as well, never high enough, never low enough, up, down. Elation, depression, yet no look-in for reason.

Parachute mood disorder counselors into the City. Send boatloads of food behaviorists towards Canary Wharf. Flood Threadneedle St with Therapists. A psychiatrist on every street corner. Specialists in equity anorexia and bulimic bail-outs outside every City cafe and coffee shop. Yo-yo dieting in the City, who'd believe it. Tough times indeed.