You won't go wrong with a Dell. I've had a few, and never had problems.
Resist the temptation to spend money on state of the art sound and video facilities, memory and processing power you'll never use.
Just a bit more for this, and just a bit more for that, soon adds up!
MS Works which includes the MS Word processing programme comes included. You don't need the full MS Office suite for your purposes, and can always add later if you want to do spreadsheets etc.
I've got a cheap Umax scanner and it does all I want.
The Epson Stylus 680 is on sale at a number of places for £65 (eg Staples). Obviously being sold off to make way for the 780 but fantastic value for money. Large Tesco stores have the Epson 580 for £50, but the extra £15 is much better value.
The small computer names are cheaper than than the likes of Dell, but I've never taken the chance. Dell has a good helpline and after sales service in the unlikely event of you needing either.
[ 27 October 2001: Message edited by: virgin ]