Trumpets were sounded, church bells rang but there was no smug air to the governor's words after news that inflation fell to its lowest level for more than a year.

"Look at us," you would have thought Mervyn King said, "we're beginning to get inflation under control and close to the 2% target."

Close, but at 3.6% it's still a good way off being there. In fact, George Osborne still made the Bank of England governor adhere to the old of rule of "if inflation's over 2% I want a personal letter telling me what the devil's going on".

In essence, the governor has to write the chancellor's excuse note, one he can present to his friends or colleagues in government to explain why he was more off target than the meteorologists ahead of last weekend's match against Ireland.

It's getting easier for him because last month was the first true like-for-like comparison in Vat, given it was raised to 20% in January 2011. But George, ever the cautious and wise old fox, isn't getting carried away.

"The unwelcome contribution of sluggish growth and high inflation over the past two years is a reflection of the need for the economy to rebalance following the financial crisis and associated deep recession, together with rises in the costs of energy and imports," he wrote, probably by candle light and using a pot of ink and a quill.

"Although inflation is now falling broadly as expected, the process of rebalancing still has a long way to go. Growth remains weak and unemployment high."

More learned experts than this reporter point out that inflation is the Bank of England's focus and it'll be marked on how it has managed prices.

Knowing that any action it takes will take a while to effect, it has to be looking ahead and trying to predict what will happen two years down the line.

That's exceedingly difficult, especially when you have the likes of oil prices jumping up and down like a fiddler's elbow.

North Sea crude is through the £75 a barrel level, a high not posted since April 2011.

And with George aiming to keep international lenders happy following Moody's raised eyebrow yesterday morning, you can bet your bottom dollar, ironically, that he'll be less likely to drop any of the three 1p rises in petrol duty which are planned.

Motorists should be just as concerned about the AAA as they are with the AA.