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This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there’s someone else to do the housework.

Ben Aaronovitch

…good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport – like base-jumping or crocodile-wrestling.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Jumping Sports Wrestling
The worst part is staying in the room after you’ve broken the news, so that you’re forced to be there when someone’s life disintegrates around them. Some people say it doesn’t bother them – such people are not to be trusted.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Broken Disintegrate News People Stay Worst
If you ask any police officer what the worst part of the job is, they will always say breaking bad news to relatives, but this is not the truth.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Broken Jobs People
When you’re a boy your life can be measured out as a series of uncomfortable conversations reluctantly initiated by adults in an effort to tell you things that you either already know or really don’t want to know.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Adults Boys Effort
And once they start to think about the consequences, they almost always calm down. Unless they’re drunk, of course. Or stoned. Or aged between fourteen and twenty-one. Or Glaswegian.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Almost Always Between Consequences Start Unless
Landscaping is the great cardinal sin of modern architecture. It’s not your garden, it’s not a park – it’s a formless patch of grass, shrubbery and the occasional tree that exists purely to stop the original developer’s plans from looking like a howling concrete wilderness.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Garden Park Tree
Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale – to the Jag mobile.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Holy Nightingale Paranormal
Actually I’d always thought he sat in the library with a slim volume of metaphysical poetry until the commissioner called him on the bat phone and summoned him into action. Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale – to the Jag mobile.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Bats Library Phones
My dad was a fairy,” said Zach. “And by that I don’t mean he dressed well and enjoyed musical theatre.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Dad Mean Musical
Somebody doesn’t know they’re not in Kansas anymore,’ said Stephanopoulos.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Kansas Knows Said
Carved above the lintel were the words SCIENTIA POTESTAS EST. Science points east, I wondered? Science is portentous, yes? Science protests too much. Scientific potatoes rule. Had I stumbled on the lair of dangerous plant geneticists?
BEN AARONOVITCH

East Potatoe
You know, your species [humans] has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by its ingenuity in trying to destroy itself.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Deception Self Trying
Every male in the world thinks he’s an excellent driver. Every copper who’s ever had to pick an eyeball out of a puddle knows that most of them are kidding themselves.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Males Puddles Thinking
The media are doing this, not because they have a sinister motive, but because they love to feel that they are influencing events. That’s why they hate politicians so much, because politicians have direct power and they do not.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Events Hate Media
Conflict resolution,’ said Nightingale. ‘Is this what they teach at Hendon these days?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I said. ‘But don’t worry, they also teach us how to beat people with phone books and the ten best ways to plant evidence.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Books People Phones
The motto of West African cooking is that if the food doesn’t set fire to the tablecloth the cook is being stingy with the pepper.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Cooking Fire West

This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there’s someone else to do the housework.

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This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there’s someone else to do the housework.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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