I’m not in the least surprised to learn that WH Smith has been voted Britain’s worst high-street retailer in a Which? survey of more than 10,000 consumers: this is the eighth year in a row that the newsagent and bookseller has come bottom or second-to-bottom in the same poll. These days its cramped shops give more shelf space to bottled water than to books, but if you do pick a paperback from the narrow choice of ‘bestsellers’ on offer — or a copy of The Spectator, if you can find it behind Men’s Health and Closer — you’re channelled into...