The first thing I normally do when arriving at the office is to make a big cup of coffee. Normally Sophie has already turned on the machine before I arrive, so the only thing I have to do is push a button and a minute later I have a large cup of steaming hot Italian coffee.

This morning I noticed that the coffee machine was still off. I turned it on, but nothing happened. I tried the computer nex to it, also not working. Ergo, a power failure in that part of the building. The office is located in an old villa (a sign over the entrance gate says 1903, but the National Heritage sign on the building says 1920), and this is the first time in 6 months that this has happened, so that’s not too bad.

I needed to make some copies, so turned on the copy machine, which is in a different part of the building. But instead of the ‘warming up’ message a huge amount of white smoke came out of the machine. Well, that was the end of the machine, 3 months old and ready to be scrapped. And it wasn’t even a cheap Chinese one. Definitively not a good start of the day.

Five minutes later two repairman came. Lots of loud talking as usual, but in the end they had no clue about what had happened, and blamed workers that had been redecorating our neighbour’s office the day before. So still no electricity, and because of that also no internet. So now I am writing this post at a Coffee Beanery outlet having a XL coffee and free wireless internet. My secretary will call me once the problem is solved, which I hope is within 2 hours, because then my laptop battery will be empty.