The latest research shows that people who work from home spend loads of the time, when they’re supposed to be working, watching TV. What do you think about that research then? Do you believe it? Do you think it’s good research? Or do you think it’s lazy research? Do you reckon it was done by the sort of researchers who work from home and probably spend most of the time watching TV?

A little bit more about the research: it was commissioned by a website that sells toner, called TonerGiant. To me this is a confusing fact and one of those weird manifestations of modern marketing, like when Carlsberg slagged off its own lager. Do the guys at TonerGiant have a dog in the fight, as it were? Do they want people to work from home so they need to buy toner to print things out in their home?

Or is it just the same if they go to the office and use the toner that their employer will also have had to buy, possibly from TonerGiant? Though perhaps the employer will get a trade discount for buying in bulk, which squeezes TonerGiant’s profit margins. Conversely, maybe a big corporation’s toner will be used with greater profligacy by its staff than domestic toner for which the staff members have had to pay themselves, so the trade discount will be more than offset by the higher overall consumption of toner.

It may be that it works out fine either way for TonerGiant and this survey is just how the company has chosen to advertise, instead of buying a slot in an Emmerdale ad break for someone like Bradley Walsh or Hannah Waddingham or me to shout “When you see........

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