News From Amphipolis 1/9/26

Possibility 1: the two prisoners are looking poignantly out through the bars at the impossible dream of Outside, remembering the days when they could wander round the neighbourhood as they pleased. Possibility 2 (which, knowing the two of them very well, seems more plausible): they are either plotting their escape, or an elaborate heist for which they will have a perfect alibi. TIL If the Greeks proverbially have a word for it, then the Germans (and Austrians) can always invent a word for it. (Perhaps one of the reasons I feel a certain affinity between them and Thucydides). This afternoon I learned ‘verschlimmbessern’, to make something worse by trying to improve it, in the context of a friend’s father having had a boat for many years that he works on endlessly and hasn’t actually sailed at all. I’m not actually sure that this quite grasps the psychological crux of the situation, and so have been thinking up new verbs like ‘vollnieenden’ (to never complete) and ‘unfertigstellen’ (to…