Office Chatter

I was looking at some of my old notebooks at home the other day, the standard spiral reporters' notebooks, with soft covers. The notebooks were dog-eared, coffee-stained, which was par for the course, but when I flipped the pages, some of the stuff I'd written, was faded and undecipherable. Not that it was anything serious, like solving the riddle of the universe, or Fermat's last theorem, stuff from years ago, but notes that I thought important at the time.

So I fell to thinking about what kind of notebook I'd use today. After some pencil-chewing I came to the conclusion that a classy Oxford Black n' Red notebook would suit me fine. I'd choose the A4 casebound notebook.

It has a rigid hard cover, capable of withstanding the depredations I inflict on it in the office and it's case-bound, which means that the pages don't fall out. Black n' Red notebooks use 90gsm paper, so that means minimal show-through (useful, because I can be a quite heavy handed scribbler sometimes).

There's a stylish red ribbon as a marker to remind me of an important page, a date planner, colour maps and a contents page, in case I need to flip through quickly to a particular section. The Oxford Black n' Red come in a range of ruling styles, to suit your particular needs, and these notebooks go all the way through to A7 size, so there's no job too small for a Black 'n' Red.

If you're the kind of person that frequently rips pages out of their notebook (without growling or gritting their teeth), there's the Oxford Black n' Red wirebound version, which has micro-perforated sheets. And you have a choice of covers: hardback, soft cover or flexible, yet hardwearing polypropylene.

Just to make you feel even more virtuous about using Oxford Black n' Red, you'll be pleased to know that the standard range uses paper from a sustainable source, while there's also some versions that use 100% recycled paper.