I worked this out myself at about 2.00am from the online manual...
Anyway, I've decided to get rid of the thing. The whole system seems so different from anything I have used in the past (and I've used RiscOS and various incarnations of Linux in addition to every Windows version from 95 onwards) that it will really not be practical for me. I will try to find a Linux netbook which I think will do what I want.
But I would like to thank everyone who has replied to this thread. My experience has been that in general enthusiastic users are far more helpful than the manufacturers and this has certainly been the case here.
I'm sorry it didn't work out for you. iOS is break from the older file system way of doing things. It can take a while to get used to, and while there is very little you can't do, it often requires a different way of doing.
It can be hard to adjust if your expecting it to work like what you are used to. To some degree the better you are with the desktop systems (they all work much the same in the end), the harder it can be to let go and learn iOS.
Not that anyone is required too. If desktop operating systems work the way you want, then they are the solution.
Personally I think your main issue is/was the time constraint. You expected to be able to just grab the iPad and start doing things the same way, so you did not give yourself the time necessary to discover how to use the iPad the way you wanted. If you had grabbed an iPad solely to discover what it was capable of, with no pressure to use it for 'this thing' and 'right now'.
All which is understandable if you thought it would work just like the operating systems you already knew, or close enough not to matter.
Whatever you end up using, good luck. Though I would steer clear of cheap netbooks. The one I owned took so long to boot up and load new programs I hated it. The iPad was, in that way, a major improvement.