It all seems rather quiet now, after the gallery openings last week, the lively Sunday evening and the excitement of breeze blocks. I had intended to put some thoughts on paper while in the shop last night, but ended up doing battle with a recalcitrant digital printer for three hours instead. Don’t you just hate it when an inanimate object lies to you?

‘The printer is out of paper, the current print job will be aborted.’

Ok, so… Check the paper tray, plenty of paper so it’s clearly a false statement. But fiddle with paper anyway, take it out, fan through it as if about to shuffle a deck of cards, place it back in the tray, shut the door, turn printer back on, start the print job again.

Buzz, whir, hum; generally encouraging sounds of a printer doing its job.

‘The printer is out of paper, the current print job will be aborted.’

No it’s not. I just checked. I looked, I actually put the paper in myself… Perhaps it only has one sentence and it actually means there is too little paper in the machine? I add some more, and start again. Buzz, whir, hum etc.

‘The printer is out of paper, the current print job will be aborted.’

‘You’ll be blooming aborted in a moment, if you don’t stop lying to me.’ I am starting to talk out loud to the inanimate object now. ‘Look, there’s another, bigger, nastier looking printer sitting right beside you, if you don’t work this time I’ll get him to beat you up. Ok?’

Turns printer off, then on, starts print job again (knowing that there are 30 pictures that need printing in the next hour), buzz, whir, hum; the sound of paper being taken into the machine’s rollers…

‘The printer is out of…’

‘Right that’s it. I’m turning you off now and using the other one, that’ll teach you. Ha!’

The other one though takes forever as it’s much slower. But at least it works. I just find it frustrating when a) machines don’t do what they are supposed to do and b) you’re told things which are clearly untrue. You would have thought that the brains who invented a machine that can convert images on a computer screen to images on paper without using ink, and the company that supply its guide book if ten different languages, using four different alphabets, could come up with the truth as to what’s gone wrong – ‘The printer is experiencing a rather distressing paper jam, please be so kind as to poke around inside it with a pen for two minutes…’ ‘We regret to inform you that there is no more useable ribbon in your printer, please replace the cartridge and life will be rosy again.’ ‘It is with deep regret that we must inform you of the passing of your printer, it has reached the end of its useful life. Please dispose of it in an environmentally friendly manner.’

Wouldn’t be too hard would it?

But hey, while the bigger one is processing prints in a leisurely fashion you can always step outside, chat to friends and take in the Symi view. Printers don’t seem to be an issue after that.