Controversial industry pundit Michael Howard is back. Chairman at office design company Maris Interiors, Howard previously graced Buzzsore when chewing over the significance if a perceived drop in business meeting sandwich quality.

Now he is concerned about a new Maris Interiors survey that finds 74 per cent of UK workplaces restrict their employees' access to the Internet; most revealing, perhaps, only 71 per cent of those surveyed have a filter for blocking pornographic websites from their staffs' view.

"It's a difficult decision about blocking websites in the workplace - by doing so you have to balance employees' productivity against their morale," Howard believes. "At Maris Interiors we restrict access to pornographic sites: hopefully this doesn't affect our morale too much."

Unwittingly, perhaps, Howard broaches the possibility that future business managers could face a tricky trade-off if the notion that porn-boosted morale could lead to quantifiable business benefits and productivity gains was ever tested under clinical conditions.