The Persian connection, 1801-1828 -- The summons to play, 1828-1830 -- A mirage in Central Asia, 1830-1833 -- The road to Bokhara, 1833-1834 -- The great concession at Baghdad, 1828-1832 -- The end of the Persian connection, 1828-1832 -- The eastern crisis, 1832-1833 -- Towards the Euphrates...

This paper applies new diagnostics to the Bank of England's pioneering density forecasts (fan charts). We compute their implicit probability forecast for annual rates of inflation and output growth that exceed a given threshold (in this case, the target inflation rate and 2.5% respectively.)...