I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police “first greeting”. “Oi!” I said “What do you think you’re doing?
BEN AARONOVITCHCarved 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?
More Ben Aaronovitch Quotes
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The clever people at CERN are smashing particles together in the hope that Doctor Who will turn up and tell them to stop
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…don’t ask me why I know what an Edwardian smoking jacket looks like: let’s just say it has something to do with Doctor Who and leave it at that.
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This is your brain on magic.
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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.
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Somebody doesn’t know they’re not in Kansas anymore,’ said Stephanopoulos.
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What do you think you’re doing?
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You know, your species [humans] has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by its ingenuity in trying to destroy itself.
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Are they really gods?” “I never worry about theological questions,” said Nightingale. “They exist, they have power and they can breach the Queen’s peace – that makes them a police matter.
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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.
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My dad was a fairy,” said Zach. “And by that I don’t mean he dressed well and enjoyed musical theatre.
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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.
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In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.
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That which does not kill us has to get up extra early in the morning if it wants to get us next time.
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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.
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…good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport – like base-jumping or crocodile-wrestling.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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My dad once told me that the secret to a happy life was never to start something with a girl unless you were willing to follow wherever it led. It’s the best piece of advice he has ever given me, and probably the reason I was born.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Coffee arrived and the espresso was excellent, like an aromatic electric fence.
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Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored.
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It’s a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.
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