“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.”

The fact that it was entirely possible for someone to be all three simultaneously is why good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport – like BASE jumping or crocodile wrestling.

The Metropolitan Police Service is still, despite what people think, a working-class organisation and as such rejects totally the notion of an officer class.

Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.

That which does not kill us has to get up extra early in the morning if it wants to get us next time.

If you just warn people, they often simply ignore you. But if you ask them a question, then they have to think about it.

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.

For a terrifying moment I thought he was going to hug me, but fortunately we both remembered we were English just in time. Still, it was a close call.

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

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.

The first rule about a black woman’s hair is you don’t talk about a black woman’s hair. And the second rule is you don’t ever touch a black woman’s hair without getting written permission first.

On the plus side, there were no rioters in sight but on the minus side this was probably because everywhere I looked was on fire.

Despite my mum being from a small village in the middle of a forest, I’m not a country person. I don’t like my bacon sandwich to be curiously snuffling at my fingers. But sometimes being police means holding your breath and fondling a pig.

A physical expression of formae. Or at least have got close enough to explain all those legendary swordsmen and their inexplicable desire to roost on the tops of bamboo trees.

He was calling it an atonic seizure because, even if he didn’t know why it had happened, it was important to give it a cool name.

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.

The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with and ology tacked on the end.

I love home cooking, and I’m not a great one for fast food.

I asked, “What are words?” The tenzo said, “One, two, three, four, five.” I asked again, “What is practice?” “Nothing in the entire universe is hidden.”

I do not stick to rules when cooking. I rely on my imagination.

Mind you, why they’d be cooking chips at this hour was anyone’s guess.

I am a guilty party here – to take, or get, undue credit for domestic virtue, when in truth cooking is the most painless and, in its ways, ostentatious of the domestic chores.

There are as many attitudes to cooking as there are people cooking, of course, but I do think that cooking guys tend

Yes, of course. I was on her like, um… I believe that old woman last week we took after she’d burnt down her house cooking said ‘like white on rice.

Is cooking an art ? Is talking an art ? Is even painting an art ? It is artfulness that makes art, not the medium itself. Of course photography is an art – when it is in the hands of artists.”