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Ah, Epson, you did not fail me.

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time there was a girl called Laura who went to university. Before she went to university she used her hard-earned savings to buy herself a spangly, spangly PC with all the bells and whistles. Despite it only being 1999, and therefore technologically a bit shit, her spangly, spangly PC had a CD rewriter! And a DVD drive! And a 17 inch Belinia monitor. Which burst into flames - twice! But that is perhaps a story for another time.

It also had an Epson Stylus 660 printer. Colour. For Laura was the dog's bollocks.

To cut a long story short, I fucking hated that fucking printer. It took about half an hour to turn on. Once it had finished printing (usually with a white line printed thoughtfully through the middle of each text, so you'd spend half your life cleaning the already sparkling printer heads), if you left the printer on standby it would make little pleading chirpy noises at you until you paid it some attention. And the printing noise! It was like a dozen mice being fed through a paper shredder.

Essentially it was an attention whore of a printer. And when we parted ways I vowed never Epson. Never again.

And I have done without a printer very nicely thank you for the last three years or so. Until this week. When I caved. Mr Nunn must take some blame here, as he recommended a super-looking three-in-one wireless printer for under £100. Made by... Epson. Enough time had passed. Forgiveness was in the air. Reader, I bought it.

TheBloke (TM) and I have spent much of the last two days on our knees on the living room floor. And not in the good way.

It is a wireless printer, but apparently you need to cable it up for the first time you set it going. Fine. That's fair enough. It comes with an ethernet cable. As far as I can tell, this is a networky thing. Stop me if I'm getting too technical. Other than that, the only cable other than the mains one provided was a phone line cable, as it's also a fax machine.

Will it connect by ethernet? Does the Pope shit in the woods? No. Not normally. Someone Internetty suggested that I need to use a USB cable to connect it. Nothing in the instructions mentions this and there's no USB cable supplied.

I logged onto the Epson website. They invited me to a "live chat". I waited ten minutes for an advisor and gave up. I phoned the Epson helpline. I waited ten minutes on hold and gave up.

Every few minutes the printer chirps at me. It is gloating.

I hate Epson. Epson hates me. In the meantime, the living room is entirely taken up with giant boxes and a lot of swearing.

Anyone techy, feel free to chip in. Or buy a printer from me. Whichever is easier.

Still - wish fulfilment - at least I've had an excuse not to work on the novel today.