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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.

Ben Aaronovitch

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
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Character Educational Thinking
The clever people at CERN are smashing particles together in the hope that Doctor Who will turn up and tell them to stop
BEN AARONOVITCH

Clever Doctors People
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
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
In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Book Dream Winter
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
If you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it’s your safest bet.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Advice Police Talking
What do you think you’re doing?
BEN AARONOVITCH

Lucky Charm Psycho Thinking
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

Children Facts Reason
What frustrated me was the thought that with three thousand years of history someone in China, some monk in a monastery halfway up a mountain, must have developed a magic kata.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Expression Magic Tree Years
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
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
This is your brain on magic.
BEN AARONOVITCH

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

Jumping Sports Wrestling
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Call Close Hug Moments
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
It’s a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.
BEN AARONOVITCH

London Long Modern Life
If you just warn people, they often simply ignore you. But if you ask them a question, then they have to think about it.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Drunk People Thinking
What’s the biggest thing you’ve zapped with a fireball?’ I asked. ‘That would be a tiger,’said Nightingale. ‘Well don’t tell Greenpeace,’ I said. ‘They’re an endagered species.’ ‘Not that sort of tiger,’ said Nightingale. ‘
BEN AARONOVITCH

Eye Track Two
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
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
Being a seasoned Londoner, Martin gave the body the “London once-over” – a quick glance to determine whether this was a drunk, a crazy or a human being in distress.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Crazy Sports Wrestling
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

Drinking End Home Important Lucky Some Truth
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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Black Firsts Hair
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
…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.
BEN AARONOVITCH

Doctors Looks Smoking

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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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.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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