Reading the business news these days can be a pretty disheartening experience. On the UK High Street, fashion chain, Jigsaw, became the latest company to enter into a CVA, shutting 13 stores and axing more than 100 jobs in the process; in the beleaguered airline industry, Virgin Atlantic announced it will cut a further 1,150 jobs (on top of the 3,500 employees it let go earlier this year) as it secured a £1.2bn rescue plan; US employment data showed that 12 million jobs have been lost since February; and Australia announced it has entered its first recession for almost 30 years after GDP shrank 7% quarter-on-quarter. The economic impact of the virus has been indiscriminate and global. Luckily, The Weekly knows exactly where to turn to revive our spirits on a Sunday morning; the uplifting world of professional sport. Who, for example, could have failed to be inspired by Andy Murray's heroic comeback from two sets down in the US Open first round against Yoshihito Nishioka? Not bad for someone with a metal hip. And if you really need an exhilarating distraction, look no further than the highlights of England's remarkable fightback to beat Australia by two runs in the first Twenty20 match on Friday night. Australia's GDP may have taken less of a beating than ours last quarter, but we are 1-0 up in the series. And (for many of us) that counts for a lot.

Talking of distractions, Boris Johnson was also in need of some positivity this week. Friday's "shovels in the ground" ceremony to mark the construction phase of the controversial HS2 high speed rail line provided just that, with the promise that it will create 22,000 jobs and "fire up economic growth". The sheer ambition and scale of the project is laudable. Phase 1 will require 140 miles of track, 32 miles of tunnel, 150 new bridges and 50 viaducts, alongside a promise to plant over 7 million trees. The key regional cities on the network (Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and further north to Edinburgh and Glasgow) will, in the future, form the spine of the UK's transport network and can only benefit from the increased connectivity. The Weekly, however, does have one salutary word of warning. The Crossrail experience has demonstrated that budgeting and delivering infrastructure on this scale is not without its challenges. TFL announced in August that Crossrail had gone a further £450 million over budget and won't open until 2022. When HS2 was originally proposed in 2009, the estimated project cost was £37.5bn, a figure which has now reached £100bn. So if you are trying to work out just how old you'll be when Phase 2 is finally completed sometime around 2035, it might be worth adding on another five years or so to be on the safe side!

Pret a Manger announced this week that it would be offering customers up to five coffees a day if they sign up to a monthly subscription service. So for just £20 a month you will be able to treat yourself to a total of 35 "barista prepared" skinny soya lattes, flat whites or iced coffees every single week. True, if you claim your full drinks quota you will be on such a permanent caffeine high that sleep will be virtually impossible. But when was the last time you found a coffee in the City of London for 57 pence? With city centres still relatively deserted by normal standards, Pret's up-to-now successful model of providing a morning pick-me-up to thousands of bleary-eyed commuters has been torn apart by the pandemic. The company has already announced it is closing 30 outlets and letting go a third of its staff. The subscription service is therefore a desperate measure in desperate times for a chain that relies heavily on office workers actually going to the office. If the "working from home revolution" is no more than a COVID-induced blip, then the Pret's strategy of tempting returning office workers back in for a cheap coffee (and a feel good croissant whilst you are there) will pay dividends. But, if the recent workplace shift is permanent - a view espoused this week by Cushman & Wakefield's Chief UK Strategy Officer - then Pret a Manger, like many other businesses, may have to do more than reduce its coffee prices to adapt to the "new normal". Whatever that turns out to be.