Myfnwy Mwr, 28, complained after the Evil Empire refused to allow her to shop in her crusty nighties even though the company’s own adverts had previously shown actor Martin Clunes doing just that, with no recrimination whatsoever.

Pretending she spoke Welsh for the benefit of the national press, Mwr said, “Mae hyn yn sefyllfa chwerthinllyd”, which roughly translates as “What a fucking joke.” The supermarket giant responded by saying, “Another of our commercials shows someone arriving in a hot-air balloon, but we don’t have balloon parking facilities at our stores. Have some FUCKING PRIDE ya slovenly bitch! Honestly, not getting dressed before leaving the house! In the Victorian era, if you were wandering around in nightwear, you were kindly ‘assisted’ to the local sanitorium, where members of the (fully dressed) public could point and laugh from the lofty heights of the viewing gallery. Good times.”

Realising the uproar this gaffe was likely to cause, the company’s PR department swung into action, and announced trials of balloon-parking at the Barford Road site. “It’ll take up about a hundred car parking spaces to provide for three balloons,” said spokesman Grant Budgen, “but there’s obviously a demand for it, or the Sun wouldn’t have printed it.”

Budgen went on that the corporation was examining other types of parking, including digging canals as far as the cash machines for people who want to use their canoes and narrowboats to go shopping, and landing strips for those with light aircraft. “We can’t afford to be seen to be discriminating against anyone,” he said, “no matter what form of transport they prefer. And we can call it ‘sustainable’ because most of these methods use less petrol than a car, and maybe we’ll give away some green clubcard points.”

Top Gear presenter James May, who recently crashed a caravan tied to an airship into a field in Eltisley, said “This is a great idea. Sometimes I want to go and get a pint of milk, and I wish it took three hours to get there. Now I can use my airship – if I aim for Dover I might just about end up in St Neots.”

A baby-boom in the overgrown housing estate means that Cambourne’s birth rate per thousand women, at 24.1, is now higher than that of India and China. In fact so many children are appearing in the town that a third primary school has opened to cope with demand, and is so new it doesn’t even have a name.

“Clearly what’s happened here is plain to see,” said NHS maternity spokesman Mike Primark. “There’s nothing to do in Cambourne apart from go to Morrisons or the pub, so everyone is just staying at home shagging. It’s disgraceful, really, these ladies should learn some self control.”

Rumours amongst residents that some mysterious airbourne fertility drug was being pumped around the local supermarket were swiftly denied by managers. “That’s crap isn’t it,” said supervisor Tessa Cohen, 23. “I’d have more than five kids by now if that were true.”

Another local parent, Jonathan Hutchence, 32, who moved to the village in 2002 said “There’s always been a lag between building houses and building other amenities. What exactly do you think a young couple are going to do to keep themselves entertained when we haven’t even got a swimming pool yet?”

Pushing her twins along the high street, Marie Watkins, 32, mum of three, said: “It’s great. It brings a vibrancy to the village to have so many children around. And at least it proves we’re good at something.”

“Yep,” said Dave Bedejaz, 42. “They scorched the cash machine and the ceiling and all sorts, but all the money was safely intact.”

Bedejaz has since filed a patent for Fireproof Money, although he finds it difficult to explain why exactly the money itself cannot be set alight. “It’s nothing to do with the fact it’s in a very secure cash machine,” said Mr Bedejaz. “It must be the money itself.”

Bedejaz, recently divorced, plans to leave his lucrative retail management career to make a fortune fireproofing other people’s money. Town Council enterprise spokesman Warren Tutha Gee said, “It’s great to see the spirit of entrepreneurialism alive and well in St Neots. We’ll definitely submit Mr Bedejaz for a Huntingdonshire Chamber of Commerce award of some description.”
Story by Mr Rainbows

Since this story was published in the Citizen six years ago, the chain has been dogged by claims of alien involvement.

“This has simply got to stop,” said spokesman Ian Morrison. “Yes, I am well aware that since the story was published we have opened another store in Eaton Socon as well as taking over One Stop in Eynesbury and Eaton Ford. But these are merely business expansion and are certainly not ‘spawns’.”

“Off the record,” he continued, “if you’re looking for E.T. selling goods in St Neots it wouldn’t hurt to look at Waitrose…”

Eynesbury resident Bob Smethy, 39, claimed to have been abducted by the store in 2002. Since then he has resided at Priory Grange where he is being treated for a number of mental health conditions.

“Is right though,” said Smethy. “They took me aboard and no-one believed me, well, look at me now! They implanted a small piece of plastic on me to track my every move!”

We did point out that Mr Smethy could merely discard what was obviously his Clubcard, but he seemed not to agree.

Local council leader Derek Miles said that the town council would investigate these claims, but that it was “unlikely that any local supermarket is extra-terrestrial.”

The case continues.

The St Neots store was recently refurbished, and was advertised as being the first in the country to get the new “green glass” look. But residents of the Parklands estate, oppostie the store, became worried that the store was not of this world.

“Well,” said Paul Capel, of Caernarvon Way, “ever since the store re-opened after it were done up, there’s been this green light shining over Eynesbury. It’s really wierd. i thought nothing of it at first but now I have heard that Bob [Smethy] from two doors down were absucted by ‘em.”

Mr Smethy, 33, claimes he was beamed aboard the store late one Friday evening when walking home from the Cambridgeshire Hunter. “I were suddenly in this big white room,” he said. “These funny little beings, some red, some blue, were talkin’ to me in a strange voice, and I couldn’t make out a word of it. There were all these beeping noises going on as well. I were packin’ me pants, I can tell ya.”

Friends of Mr Smethy, who had been drinking with him that night in the Berkley Street pub, said he was “not pissed enough to imagine something like that.”

“I were tempted,” continued Smethy, “to put it down to bein’ a bit less than sober, like. But me mates said, ‘nah Bob, y’only had about nine pints’ so I thought it probably weren’t that. Still, I weren’t too worried – it were a one-off thing and, as far as I can tell, I didn’t get probed in any way, anal or otherwise.
Then I realised – Eynesbury manor! Them poor people shellin’ out hundreds of thousands to live within the radioactive field of this spacecraft. Somebody think of the children!”

No-one from the Cheshunt, Herts, based retailer was available for interview, but their press office issued the following statement:

“As far as we are concerned, Tesco St Neots is not, and has never been, an extra-terrestrial mothership of any kind. We believe Mr Smethy’s experience was down to being intoxicated. The red and blue ‘beings’ were in fact night-shift workers in their new uniforms, and the beeping noises were of course the 24-hour checkouts.
The green glow is caused by fluorescent lighting shining through the green glass. We are working on a way to reduce this.”

Despite Tesco’s reassurances, no houses were sold on Eynesbury manor this weekend – however this may be due to flooding. mr Smethy was taken to Hinchingbrooke Hospital to be “monitored”. No black helicopters were reported in the area.