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 AARONOVITCHWhen 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 AARONOVITCHAre 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.
BEN AARONOVITCHThe 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 AARONOVITCHLandscaping 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 AARONOVITCHMy 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.
BEN AARONOVITCHActually 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 AARONOVITCHMy dad was a fairy,” said Zach. “And by that I don’t mean he dressed well and enjoyed musical theatre.
BEN AARONOVITCHIn the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold.
BEN AARONOVITCHIf you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it’s your safest bet.
BEN AARONOVITCHThat which does not kill us has to get up extra early in the morning if it wants to get us next time.
BEN AARONOVITCHSomebody doesn’t know they’re not in Kansas anymore,’ said Stephanopoulos.
BEN AARONOVITCHThis I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there’s someone else to do the housework.
BEN AARONOVITCH…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 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?
BEN AARONOVITCHThe 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 AARONOVITCHWhat 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