WH Smith confirms it will survive everything like retail version of cockroach

NEWSAGENT WH Smith has confirmed that coronavirus cannot affect it because it is indestructible.

The high street chain has already survived the death of print media despite selling mostly magazines, so has no qualms about a global pandemic.

A spokesman said: “Even though it’s basically illegal to go outside that won’t affect us because we don’t sell anything people actually want.

“We’re actually not a business but a cult devoted to recreating 1997 by stocking puzzle magazines and DVD box sets of The Sweeney.

“Ours is a quiet and simple existence, unfettered by the normal rules of business. But like the simple cockroach we will outlast civilisation and rebuild from the ashes a fairer society based on flogging the Radio Times and scientific calculators.”

WH Smith manager Nikki Hollis said: “Before Coronavirus, on a good day we might sell a packet of Minstrels and a copy of the Express. That hasn’t really changed.”

Meanwhile Pizza Hut confirmed it was somehow still going too, putting its continued existence down to ‘sheer bloody-mindedness’.

Expensive, pointless railway line more important than ever, says government

SPENDING £110 billion on HS2 to help people move around the country faster is just what this pandemic needs, the government has confirmed.

Whilst the economy tanks and people may have to stay at home for months to come, ministers have given the green light for work to start on a ruinously expensive railway line to make it quicker to get to London.

A spokesman said: “Despite the fact that a deadly virus is sweeping the world and no one will be able to afford to get on a train for the next decade, we’re pressing on with this colossal waste of money.

“It might seem that £110 billion would be better spent on the NHS or bailing out small firms, but you have to balance that with the fact that a few wealthy businessmen would like to shave 20 minutes off their occasional journeys between London and Birmingham.

“And there is the concern that social distancing will be impossible and construction workers might get ill, but you cant make an omelette without breaking a few eggs.”

He added: “If they survive, we’ll give them a badge or something.”