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ff102a1
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It had a long and varied history, mostly involving crime, prostitution and the theater,
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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9aef9f7
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If you ask any copper why they stick at a job which exposes them to abuse from everyone from petty criminals all the way down to government ministers, they'll say it's the variety.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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99289ad
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It was chintz but not the cat-lady chintz I was used to. Perhaps it was Mrs. Bellrush's manner or steely blue eyes but I got the distinct impression that this was aggressive chintz, warrior chintz, the kind of chintz that had gone out to conquer an Empire and still had the good taste to dress for dinner. Any IKEA flat-pack that showed its face around here was going to be kindling.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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d995fd7
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Dr Walid walked me past the security at reception and introduced me to today's dead body.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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521726f
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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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Ben Aaronovitch |
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fa0e047
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Your ghost,' she said, 'Nicholas Nickleby. Do you think he might still be at the crime scene?' 'How should I know?' I said. 'I don't even believe in ghosts.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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4c9c2d0
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I headed over the river to the address listed on Mr Wilkinson's driving licence to see whether there was anyone who loved him enough to kill him.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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5c100d4
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I showed her my warrant card, and she stared at it in confusion. You get that about half the time, mainly because most members of the public have never seen a warrant card close up and have no idea what the hell it is.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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8dcbddb
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It's a sad fact of modern life that sooner or later you will end up on YouTube doing something stupid. The trick, according to my dad, is to make a fool of yourself to the best of your ability.
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humor
youtube
broken-homes
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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8305058
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The voice belonged to a plump, round-faced woman of the sort that develops a good personality because the alternative is suicide.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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d78b127
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The rest of the band faded down to almost nothing while my dad did his best Bill Evans impression -- except hopefully without the untreated hepatitis.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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73fc083
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Abigail stared suspiciously at Lesley. "Why are you wearing a mask?" she asked. "Because my face fell off," said Lesley. Abigail considered this for a moment and then nodded. "Okay," she said."
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rivers-of-london
peter-grant
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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d440898
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Inside, it was very dark but I am, if not exactly a master, then definitely an apprentice in the secret arts. And as such I laugh in the face of darkness.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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88d2843
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So etwas wie ein standiges Spurensicherungsteam gibt es ubrigens nicht. da die Spurensicherung so teuer ist, bestellt man sie beim Innenministerium immer nur happchenweise wie beim chinesischen Lieferservice. Aus der prozession von Plastikanzugen zu schliessen, die an uns voruberzog, hatte Stephanopoulos sich das Super-Deluxe-Menu fur sechs Personen mit einer extraportion Reis gegonnt. Und ich war dann wohl der Gluckskeks.
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humor
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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1f7d202
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The narrow hallway was lined with framed photographs while the far end was dominated by a faux movie poster for Gone with the Wind starring Ronald Reagan sweeping Margaret Thatcher off her feet while a mushroom cloud bloomed behind them. She promised to follow him to the end of the world. He promised to organise it.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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e034161
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Pictures of Cheam adorn the walls of planning offices of every Home County to serve as an awful warning.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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5bc8df6
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The world was different before the war,' he said. 'We didn't have this instantaneous access to information that your generation has. The world was a bigger, more mysterious place - we still dreamed of secret caves in the Mountains of the Moon, and tiger hunting in the Punjab.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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2f65faa
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Who knows why the fuck anything happens?
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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23e5c71
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You can't die of jazz," said Dr. Walid. "Can you?" I thought of Fats Navarro, Billie Holiday, and Charlie Parker who, when he died, was mistaken by a coroner for a man twice his real age. "You know," I said, "I think you'll find you can." Jazz"
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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1dbce32
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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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landscape
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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f435b33
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There's more to life than just London,' said Nightingale. 'People keep saying that,' I said. 'But I've never actually seen any proof.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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1d05d3a
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Men have died for this music. You can't get more serious than that' Dizzy Gillespie
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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09f9cd4
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You don't get to be a senior investigating officer unless you have a degree in scepticism, an MA in distrust and your CV lists suspicious bastard under your hobbies.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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760f459
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When it was my turn and I stood up and called for life, liberty and peace and managed to sit down before I added a hard-boiled egg to the list.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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77c6ed6
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Guleed passed me the completed IIP on Caroline Linden-Limmer and pointed out a note which registered that she'd been granted a Gender Recognition Certificate when she was eighteen - changing her legal gender from male to female. 'So . . .' I started, but was cut off by the vast silence emanating from Stephanopoulos behind us. I looked over at Nightingale, who looked quizzically back, and decided to explain the implications later. Surprising..
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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566c763
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Ever since mankind stopped wandering around aimlessly and started cultivating its own food, society has been growing more complex. As soon as we stopped sleeping with our cousins and built walls, temples and a few decent nightclubs, society became too complex for any one person to grasp all at once, and thus bureaucracy was born.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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50c9d88
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The very rich, having fundamentally missed the point of urban living, have long been frustrated by the fact that it's impossible to squeeze the amenities of a country mansion--car showroom, swimming pool, cinema, servants quarters etc.--into the floor space of your average London terrace. Those without access to trans-dimensional engineering, a key Time Lord discovery, have had to resort to extending their houses into the ground. Thus provi..
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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09bbfce
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A lifetime of disappointment had made him cynical, but you don't stay an activist without a core of stubborn belief that things can get better - it's a bit like being a Spurs supporter really.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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16ea576
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Back at the start of World War Two the authorities forbade the use of the Underground as an air raid shelter. Instead Londoners were supposed to rely on hastily built neighborhood shelters or on the famous Anderson shelters, which were basically rabbit hutches made from corrugated iron with some earth shoveled on top. Londoners being Londoners, the prohibition on using the Underground lasted right up until the first air raid warning, at whi..
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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707c0c8
|
What's it a charm for?' she asked. The man thought about this for a moment. 'It's your basic all-enveloping protection charm,' he said, his hands describing a cupped circle in the air. 'For protection against...' 'Envelopes?' said Abigail.
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humour
protection
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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b68f00f
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This is why you have procedure, training and drill, so that you do things when your brain is too shocked to think for itself--ask any soldier.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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a0d2f39
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I ended up learning magic because you can't trust the British to keep to an agreement over the long term.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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a57207c
|
How many thefts have there been?' I asked. 'That depends on how you define it,' said Adrian. Because material went missing off sites all the time, which is why important finds were collated and secured the day they were found. Important in archaeological terms not always being the same as valuable - at least not in the fenceable sense. Archaeology came in all shapes, sizes, and apparent degrees of nickableness. 'We wouldn't have even notice..
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context
archaeology
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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4f349e1
|
I happened to know for a fact that the whole of Belgravia nick were running a pool on how long I would last and how I would go--the options being death, medical discharge (physical), medical discharge (psychological), indefinite disciplinary suspension, sacked for misconduct, secondment to Interpol and, with just one vote, ascension to a higher plane of existence. I suspected the last one was a bit unlikely.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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208cbd6
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My dad had 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 leads.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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1f27b7f
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There's always a secret door," I said. "That's why you always need a thief in your party."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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9d423fe
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Whatever you see, he'd said, take as long a look as you need to get used to it, to accept it, and then move on as if nothing has changed.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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9e3a533
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I turned right onto the A410 which went north with suspiciously Roman straightness toward Aymestrey, which is less a village than a diorama of the last six hundred years of English vernacular architecture stretched along either side of the road.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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67b563d
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Missing kids are tough cases. I mean, murder is bad but at least the worst has already happened to the victim--they're not going to get any deader. Missing kids come with a literal deadline, made worse by the fact that you don't get to learn the timing until it's too late.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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112f10a
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It gave me "the eye"--the fearsome gaze that sheepdogs use to keep their charges in line. But I gave it "the look"--the stare that policemen use to keep members of the public in a state of randomized guilt."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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6010d88
|
Then you throw the bloody thing as far as you can, hopefully outside the area of immediate magical effect, where two minutes later it basically phones the Met control room and screams help, help, serious magic shenanigans here - send help - preferably Nightingale.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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a367e1e
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When it's still--when it's the cellar of a house, or a ring of mushrooms in a forest or a gun emplacement outside Offenburg--it's called one of two things. If it remains static and unchanging then we call it a despair. If it seeks to extend its influence then it is a malignancy. Or as the Director puts it--a despair will suck you in, but a malignancy is coming to get you.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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0c95f66
|
Cicero wouldn't approve of my writing style, but at least I pronounce his name with a hard C.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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23276bc
|
She had a narrow face which could fall into an expression of belligerent suspicion of such power that her teachers said they could feel it even when they were hiding in the staff room. It was her stubbornness, coupled with this expression - and routine everyday low grade racism - that kept her constantly on the verge of a school suspension.
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Ben Aaronovitch |