HSBC Email Servers Overloaded With Directions To Hong Kong

IT engineers are struggling today to unblock the data pipes leading into HSBC, as millions of people emailed the bank with directions showing the quickest, shortest and cheapest routes to Hong Kong after the corporation allegedly threatened to move its headquarters from London.

Don't bother about the 'Inbound' part, you won't be needing it

The bank’s board of directors is now backpedalling furiously, claiming that “no decision whatsoever” has yet been made after shareholders told the Sunday Telegraph that a move was “more than likely”.

HSBC has recently hit out at chancellor George Osborne’s plans to levy a tiny proportion of the bank’s massive profits, which tripled to £12bn last year.

“London is ideally positioned as an international financial centre, what with its easily-distracted regulators, the splendid laxity with which corporate taxation is enforced and the superb generosity of the UK government in bankrupting the entire country for our sole benefit, and we have been clear that it is our preference to remain headquartered here for as long as we can continue to get away with it,” said an HSBC spokesman. “However, if it really starts to look like the party’s over, I suppose we might consider inflicting the benefits of our financial acumen on China once again.”

Meanwhile, an inscrutable spokesman for the Chinese government told reporters: “Ancient Chinese proverb say: When you are poor, neighbours close by will not come; once you become rich, you'll be surprised by visits from ‘relatives’ from afar.”