Begging to referee!

Before you rush sending me papers to referee, let me stress that this post title is ironical! I am not asking for more papers to referee! What happened to me over the weekend is that I had agreed to referee one ERC (ERC stands for European Research Council) proposal due today and that, when I tried to read the proposal and write my on-line report, I was denied access. What transpired is that I had not faxed a signed copy of my agreement to referee the proposal…. As if an email was not enough. So, in the end, as the deadline was getting near and I did not want to penalise the researcher(s), I had to waste the 15mn required to print, sign and fax the form. About as silly as the persistence of the written signature on paper copyrights!