It’s like a curse. Waking up last Wednesday to a view of the full moon reflected off the Adriatic in the pale light of dawn, I opened the sliding door to the hotel balcony to take a snapshot. As I did so I heard the air conditioning fan stop and there in the pale light of dawn I saw a magnetic reed switch on the door frame, evidently linked to the fan-coil unit control. “Brilliant” I thought: “a picture of that will be perfect for my session at our conference on energy in hotels”.

To be fair to myself I did photograph the moonlit Adriatic first and the interlock switch later.