I don't think of myself as technophobic Luddite and indeed am quite proud of my reasonable 'for some one of his age' grasp of e-science. Computerate? Yes. Up to a point. But for the last 48 hours I was completely thrown by my Lexmark Z55- all printing-all dancing SOTA Ink Jet wizard. It suddenly refused to load any paper-single sheets-lots of them-thin, thick, shiny, recycled all rejected with contempt and with a banshee like screeching. Made more irritating by the man with an irritating nasal Yankee accent(who seems to live in the machine, not that I have seen him) complaining that the paper had not been loaded properly. In despair I e-mailed the Lexmark Geeks having been through all the FAQ's on the help line. I got a very prompt reply with a number of mostly intelligible suggestions (unusual for Geeks) advocating several course of action but stopping short of spraying with WD40-my usual response to most mechanical failures. The last one was 'turn printer upside down and shake vigorously' (page 3 of the e-mail and very much, it seemed to me, a counsel of desperation). I did so and a cassette dropped out. Not a bit of the printer but one entitled 'Psalms of patience, protest and praise' (an emotional snapshot of my recent sufferings?) It presumably had had fallen into the printer feeder from a little shelf directly above it used by the wife for storage of CDs and tapes in a vain attempt to keep the computer desk uncluttered. Of course the printer proceeded to work perfectly.
Well done the Lexmark Geeks. I sent them an effusive e-mail of thanks suggesting (slightly tongue in cheekily) that the dangers of dropping casettes and how to deal with them be added to the FAQs. This they played with a straight bat saying that this important suggestion would be given every consideration. Courteous and intelligible. What a combination. No wonder they won the European Cup.* The omens for the Olympics are most promising.
*
Greeks not Geeks Dummy. (Blog ed)
