Our reporter Scott McPherson picked up a very strong rumour this week that WH Smith is about to quit its store in Chippenham High Street and that a Marks & Spencer Simply Food is a hot favourite to take over.

M&S has long coveted a shop in Chippenham and the runaway success of its stores in Devizes and Marlborough will only have increased that desire to get into the town centre.

Especialy when you consider its main competition will be the Somerfield store in Emery Gate, which seems to be staffed entirely by bored teenagers.

The departure of WH Smith, and the loss of its book and magazine sections, would be a blow to the town, although I imagine no one is actually using them or the shop would not be thinking about getting out.

I would also imagine closing the store would hamper WH Smith's company mission, which appears to be to force all its customers into buying chocolate.

Whenever I go into a Smiths, even if it is only to buy a book of stamps and a paper, I always get offered a half-price bar of chocolate.

It wouldn't be half so bothered if it was a normal-sized bar but it is usually the size of a suitcase.

This has happened in Devizes, Chippenham and Swindon and begs the question, if Smiths need to flog all this mouldering Galaxy off why do they keep ordering so much of it?

There was huge excitement in Devizes when M&S came to town. It was like one of those old medicine men selling tonic out of the back of a wagon had rolled up in a Wild West frontier settlement that had only previously had the choice of pig bladder infection pills.

I must admit I was mildly elated myself to have a different choice of sandwich. But that was more than two years ago and in the interim the sandwich variety has changed not a jot so I'm utterly bored with it now.

Even dear old Greggs varies its sandwich menu occasionally, although its bored staff make Somerfield's look like Jermyn Street tailors by comparison.