I know. It's coming to something when your idea of spiritual enlightenment is getting a new photocopier for the office, but as one of my colleagues pointed out, this is actually a very serious business. 'Companies against Crap Photocopiers Unite' she yelled across the open plains: 'You should start a blog about it - we are not alone. Out in the world there are hundreds of companies just like us, stuck in Photocopier Hell!'
Yes, indeed, dear, I thought, peeling her off the ceiling, while wondering if, perhaps, this would be a good time for her to rethink her meds, but it's true. Photocopiers which occupy premium office space like very expensive and totally useless, non-functional ornaments that cause you to lug manuscripts round the corner to Pronta Print - in the rain - do not one's mental health improve.
We have attempted to solve the problem of our crumbling and useless photocopier by replacing it with two whiz bang machines, on the basis that surely one of the b*ds with work, and trusting, yes we still have some illusions left - that we're not merely doubling the mental anquish when (surely, invariably) they both seize up and eat reams of paper at the same time.
But Mathilda, showing unusual optimism over good sense, claims that Canon engineers come, like the Messiah, with toolbelts (Well okay, it's not a picture that I ever licked and stuck into my Scripture Book at Sunday School) on which (said in hushed and reverential tones): 'They carry spare parts.'
Well, we can but hope.
And possibly pray...