In a stunning display of how much we've all outsourced our lives to a single company, Google Cloud's London region decided to take an unscheduled nap today, taking down banks, Revolut, and even court video cameras with it. Google has since apologized for the "power issue," presumably after someone walked over and jiggled the plug. Regulators, clearly thrilled to have something to do, are now pushing for details, because nothing says "modern infrastructure" like a single point of failure bringing justice to a halt.

Meanwhile, in the "good news nobody expected" category, the UK's unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 4.7%, sending the pound rallying half a cent against the dollar to $1.3352. The City welcomed the news with the enthusiasm of a trader who just found a forgotten fiver in their pocket. As one analyst put it, "This data has caught the market on the hop, with traders scrambling to respond and boost exposure to the pound." Because nothing says economic stability like a last-minute scramble.

The analyst added, "Good news has been a touch more prevalent for the UK of late, which is just the kind of framing the government needs heading into the budget, though signs of more resilience in the labour market do of course mean the BoE has more room to respond to higher inflation." Translation: the Bank of England now has the wiggle room to hike rates again, because apparently that's what passes for a silver lining these days.

But before we break out the champagne, let's remember the labour market is still "relatively flat overall." That's economist-speak for "it's not getting worse, but it's not getting better either." The resilience in the face of global headwinds is "welcome," but underlying problems remain: around one million young people are not in education, employment or training, and overall employment is more than two million short of the Government's 80% employment rate target. So, you know, minor details.

To fix those challenges, we're told we need to change the benefit system so it offers active help to all who need it, and make it easier for employers to create jobs. Groundbreaking stuff. In other news, water is wet, and Google Cloud outages will probably happen again. But hey, at least the pound is up half a cent. Priorities, people.