Lost City Unearthed

The remains of an entire ancient city have been uncovered on the remote Atlantic coast of Devon, say excited archaeologists.

The city is thought to date from the Lary culture which ruled Britain in the mid-1980s, although some structures may date back as far as the 1950s.

The city - which was abandoned and buried by successive governments - shows macabre evidence of human sacrifice, with tens of thousands of victims of defence cuts unceremoniously dumped on the rubbish tip.

Excavators say the city enjoyed a once-thriving maritime culture, but its primitive rulers maintained a rigid, short-sighted attitude that failed to change with the times, resulting in cultural and economic stagnation. The city died a lingering death, and its forgotten inhabitants degenerated into a life of savage ignorance.

Among the rare finds that have been uncovered are ceramics (in the form of thousands of empty glasses and bottles), unfashionable cheap clothing bearing a variety of logos of yesteryear, and the remains of a young woman, still poignantly clutching a pregnancy testing kit.

The media were briefly stirred by the momentous discovery and hastily checked Wikipedia for references to the tragic lost city of Plymouth, before forgetting all about it again for another couple of thousand years.