I am indebted to Royal Mail for reminding me how easily I could be incarcerated for sending one of the following items abroad as Christmas gifts to those friends of mine who are, how shall I say in 'high places'?

As Her Majesty's mail service aptly points out 'While you would expect to be banned from sending dangerous or hazardous items, other products prohibited from being posted to certain nations include:

India - shaving brushes

Irish Republic - papers or materials treated with oil or varnish

Portugal - saccharin

Sri Lanka - key rings, ashtrays

Cayman Islands - rum

Kuwait - rubber balloons

Jamaica - figurines

Saudi Arabia - binoculars

Kazakhstan - works of art

Malawi - aphrodisiacs

Bangladesh - cellophane paper, bicycle tyres

Benin - gramophone records

Gabon - mineral water

Japan - salt

Which means of course that none of my business associates in Kuwait will now receive my annual and much anticipated gift of Homer Simpson inflatables.

Colin Beesley, Sales & Marketing Director, for Royal Mail International explained:

"With increasing numbers of small businesses now trading all over the world, it is vital that they understand any prohibitions they could face when exporting goods."

So, remember, you have been warned

On another entirely unrelated subject, forget 'Yuppies' 'Nimbys' and 'Dinkys' because the latest social stereotype to emerge in the 21st Century are 'TSARs' - Technology Savvy and Remote.

These apparently are office workers who spend so much time working at home or on the road, that their office life is all but non-existent.

Indeed, new research shows that half of the UK's businesses now require their staff to work either remotely from home or in the car.

Now you might think that would be welcome news to the office worker traditionally stuck behind a desk in a miserable office for eight hours a day, suffering from coffee breath and water-retentive ankles?

But no.

A quarter of those surveyed felt that the numerous communications channels now available to them such as SMS, email, voicemail etc, which allow to work out of the office, actually make their jobs more stressful.

Which proves, if ever proof were needed, that you just can't please all of the people all of the time.