When upmarket businesses such as Duchy Originals, founded by Prince Charles, are finding it hard going, what hopes are there for smaller enterprise? It's been reported that Duchy is in talks with Waitrose about integrating its production and back-end processes with the supermarket chain in order to cut costs.

I’m sitting next to my colleague and listening to him complain profusely about his assigned task for the day: clearing out the stationery cupboard.

Now, I would offer to take over the job, but it is kind of entertaining watching him get agitated over it. To be honest, I rather enjoy clearing it out. It’s a bit like Sarina’s magical mysterious filing cabinet  – you never know what you might find in its dark dusty corners.

There are hundreds of different types and designs of scissors, in countless different sizes, colours and brands. We took a practical approach to checking out the desk-worthiness of the everyday office scissors. So we set them to work on a 55-page thin magazine and then the same magazine folded in half, for  the '110-page thin magazine challenge'. 

Now we could find out if the famous brands really are that much better than common or garden brands.

The other day I read that in the '60s Jim Henson, the Muppet's creator, had made adverts for IBM.

I found it hard to reconcile the idea that characters from my childhood had been used to sell computers; that they were espousing the benefits of desktops and workstations and so on. So, I went looking for confirmation and headed to YouTube.

Before I started at Euroffice, I used to be a store manager in a high street shop. In my earlier job I spent a lot of time on my feet; here I spend most of my time sitting down. It was quite a big change and I started looking for ways to make myself more comfortable,  so that I didn’t keep going home looking like I'd d been sitting in front of a television for 24 hours straight.

Small businesses (SMEs) have stolen a march on corporates when it comes to hiring staff, according to a survey by recruitment specialist Angela Mortimer plc. Why? Because candidates feel SMEs offer greater flexibility, a better work environment and more career prospects.

We've been on a bit of a Post-it note kick recently. So, though I'm a bit wary of writing about Post-it notes too much (if such a thing were possible), I found a site that was so good, I just had to share it.

We've got a another cool video to share with you today, this time from the Mitsubishi Pencil Company, makers of the uni-ball pen range. It shows how their uni-ball Super Ink pen could help cut cheque fraud. (Admittedly, they use an I.O.U. in the video, but I imagine this would work for cheques.)

Beautiful women, jeroboams of champagne and racy action. No, we're not talking about Christmas parties, we're talking about the Second German Office Chair Racing Championships!

I love filing. I actually love it. Apparently I love it so much, I'm sick. (I was diagnosed by colleagues. I think I need a second opinion.)

The present economic environment is not conducive to lending to small businesses (SMEs) says the  Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales (ICAEW). The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills asked the ICAEW to provide research into the lending climate for SMEs, so it canvassed senior partners within the 40 largest accountancy firms with responsibility for this sector.

Buying office products can be a bit of a minefield ; they can often be very similar, but have their own niche uses and subtle differences. Staplers are no exception, so we thought we'd help you figure out what to look for.

When I was  a child my parents had a home office, a mysterious room that my brother and I weren't supposed to go into into. Of course, as typically curious, rebellious and cheeky kids, whenever we were left to our own devices we went straight for the office, opening drawers and climbing under the desk. Hitting the keys on the keyboard, dialling numbers on the phone and pretty much just snooping – being very careful, if we moved anything, to put it back in place. 

Earlier this week a news item in the Telegraph said that the government had given away £177.8m in loan guarantees in the year to 31 March, under the Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme (EFG) and its predecessor, the Small Firms Loan Guarantee scheme. This was less than the £205m of the previous year.

For all of us who have had to do THOSE jobs in an office - the filing, the printing, the mailing and the dreaded stapling together of documents – we know about the tedium and vacant stares that inevitably accompany these tasks. We constantly look for the fastest way to get these jobs done whilst still keeping some kind of sanity and trying desperately to make them entertaining.

Sitting on my desk, right now, is:

- A now empty can of diet coke

It’s one of those simple things that makes you think “Surely I could have invented it” - The Post-it note. A little piece of paper with an adhesive back.

Stationery - Noun

writing materials, such as paper, envelopes, and pens

USAGE: Avoid confusion with stationary.

Imagine a young lad straight out of school looking for his first job – well, not so long ago, that was me.

One of my first jobs was quality checking and packing software for a City house. When I say software I mean 5” floppy disks. I had to load wobbly disk after wobbly disk to a computer the size of a small house and then pack them into standard envelopes for shipping to addresses around the world. (OK, maybe the job wasn't as recent as I'm making out!)

In the current economic climate (man, I hate that phrase) more and more people are deciding to set up their offices at home. The advantages are pretty clear: no more brief-but-intimate introductions to the armpits of strangers on the Tube, more flexible working hours and a much tastier lunch are just a few.  I even tried it myself once -  with London brought to a standstill by snow earlier in the year, I had no choice but to go about my day’s work in the safe, warm confinement of my tiny bedroom.

The Carbon Trust says it is offering 'as close to free money as a business can get' to help small and medium size businesses (SMEs) cut their energy costs and reduce their carbon footprint. It has relaxed the rules for interest-free, unsecured 'green' loans from its £100m fund; the minimum amount is down to £3,000 and the upper limit has been doubled to £400,000.

Have you noticed how people give things genders? Women will call their runabouts things like Betty and baby and in Western movies grizzled cowboys will patt their rifles and call them Grandma. (Or maybe not.) Some people even have it built into their language, French being an obvious example.

The problem with whiteboards is they don't tell the time. The problem with clocks is that you can't make notes on 'em.

Until, as Jeremy Clarkson might say, now.

On the BBC’s 2 July Question Time, Harriet Harman said the government's new financial measures had enabled 160,000 businesses to defer payment of taxes for up to two years.

Maybe it’s just me (yes, it’s just me) but after more than 20 years using a keyboard all day, every day, I still can’t touch type. While I’m not the president of Mensa (actually I’m really very glad I’m not – my guess is he’s a weirdo), I like to think I’m not a dimwit, nor am I challenged in the finger department. I'm not even  uncoordinated (ok, anyone who’s seen me dance will know I’m lying about that one).

Although the mercury may not be rising as high today as when I was in Singpore 3 months ago, my zest to be in an air-conditioned building is much the same. Are you a fan of the aircon’ed or balmy office? Let us know.

It was a big day, not to mention achievement, in Year 4 when my handwriting earned enough gold stars to be awarded a pen licence.

There have been a couple of interesting developments in the world of portable power recently. (Exciting, I know.)

First, many of the major mobile phone manufacturers, after discussion with the European Commission, have agreed to work towards developing a standard mobile phone charger -- mini-USB.