I had a peculiar exchange of words at the flea market. I was looking at a thick DIY book of the 1960s, entitled Die Axt im Haus. But I didn’t get far because one of the stallholders came up to me and said, ‘This book is much better’, and tried to press a copy of Pschyrembel’s Klinisches Wörterbuch into my hands. This seemed odd, because I already have Pschyrembel (I told him mine was fairly recent and he said, ‘Ein zeitloses Werk’), and I haven’t noticed any do-it-yourself tips in there.

However, it seemed he had read the title as Der Arzt im Haus. I said, ‘Der Arzt im Haus ersetzt sich selber’, and ‘Die Axt im Haus ersetzt den Arzt’, but somehow I don’t think we were on the same wavelength.