It’s a police mantra that all members of the public are guilty of something, but some members of the public are more guilty than others.
BEN AARONOVITCHThe clever people at CERN are smashing particles together in the hope that Doctor Who will turn up and tell them to stop
More Ben Aaronovitch Quotes
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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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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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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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I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police “first greeting”. “Oi!” I said “What do you think you’re doing?
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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.
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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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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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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?
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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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The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with and ology tacked on the end.
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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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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.
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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.
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This is your brain on magic.
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The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you’ve generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life – like drinking and sleeping, and if you’re lucky, a relationship with the gender and sexual orientation of your choice.
BEN AARONOVITCH






