Windows ∞ ™

If you are acquainted with Philip Pullman's Dark Materials trilogy you will be familiar with the aliethiometer, a gizmo which has several levels of interpretation. The Greek language also has several levels of interpretation. It is a very logical language and so it is possible to make up an entirely new word and everyone who understands Greek will immediately understand the meaning of the new word; For instance, Niki means victory and so Thessaloniki means Victory over Thessaly. Xenos means stranger and nero means water, tis is a standard masculine ending for a noun and so Xenerotis means 'fish out of water'.

When we first arrived here and were somewhat bamboozled by apparent bureaucratic obstacles we were told “there are many windows” which can mean both “we can find a loophole that works” as well as “there's more than one way to skin a cat”. Some phrases are identical in both languages, so the literal translation of “I am all ears” does indeed mean “you have my undivided attention” and “we shall see” means “we might be clueless just now but eventually it will all make sense”.

Which is all just a preamble before telling you that we have spent the last several days attempting to install Windows 10 but because the cycle of download – preparing to install – installing – installation failed has been apparently endless, we have renamed it Windows infinity.