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b28c942
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one of the first rules of police work is that trouble will always come looking for you, so there's no point looking for it.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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2e467e8
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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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mothers
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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3a1ae6f
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Ghosts, I was thinking, memories - I wasn't sure there was a difference.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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c240a15
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The kitchen was the kind of brushed steel monstrosity that looks more like it's designed to weaponise viruses than cook dinner.
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kitchen-design
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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1c7957c
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The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse [...] stuck in my mind because of the subject's flagrant health and safety violation. As any competent practitioner will tell you, you always complete your protective circle *before* you start your workings.
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magic
urban-fantasy
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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0c0226e
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She had the startled-rabbit look that civilians get after five minutes of helping the police with their inquiries. If they stay calm for too long it's a sign that they're professional villains or foreign or just plain stupid. All of which can get you locked up if you're not careful. If you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it's your safest bet.
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police
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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0e31a4b
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The principal advantages of living in your station's section house is that it is cheap, close to work and it's not your parents' flat. The disadvantages are that you're sharing your accommodation with people too weakly socialised to live with normal human beings, and who habitually wear heavy boots. The weak socialisation makes opening the fridge an exciting adventure in microbiology, and the boots mean that every shift change sounds like a..
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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0cbde6c
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The white boys knew they had my attention now, but hesitated -- that's the trouble with being a racist in the white heartlands, you don't get a lot of practical experience.
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yobs
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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41327f2
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The evening was still warm enough for shirtsleeves, and the city was clinging to summer like a wannabe trophy wife to a promising center forward.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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795750e
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Bollocks, I thought, or testiculi or possibly testiculos if we were using the accusative.
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bollocks
testivuli
peter-grant
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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b1bc6d8
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Carnivorous unicorns, I thought.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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8e60916
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The designer had probably been going for Turkish Bath but had hit Czech Porn Shoot instead.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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680eda7
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For a certain generation of African immigrants cleaning offices became part of the culture like male circumcision and supporting Arsenal.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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b89d78c
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I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, "Who knows why the fuck anything happens?"
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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474d7ac
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It's strictly constables, sergeants, and lunatics. We'll keep the kettle on for you.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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9a1c8f1
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Whatever was in the sandwiches, you didn't want them getting too warm and going off, or starting to smell, or spontaneously mutating into a new life form.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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9941638
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THE TROUBLE with the old boy network is you can never be really sure whether it's switched on or not and whether it's operating in your interest or some other old boy's.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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49e0460
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Urban Outfitters, eh," said Beverley. "That explains the Dr Denim shirt." "My mum bought me that," I said. "And you think that's less embarrassing?"
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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973652f
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What are my options?" she asked as I climbed into the driver's seat. "Meaningless euphemisms at one end and your full-on Unseen University at the other," I said. "The Unseen University is a bit like Hogwart's--" Stephanopoulos cut me off. "I have read some Terry Pratchett," she said."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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60ca2eb
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He was a Parisian,' he said. 'You can never be sure what Parisians believe in - beyond Paris of course.
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humour
paris
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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d9b4603
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He was transparent, the way holograms in films are transparent.Three dimensional, definitely really there and fucking...transparent.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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9b20620
|
You never said you used to play Dungeon and Dragons," Lesley had said when I explained my reasoning. I'd been tempted to tell her that I was thirteen at the time, and anyway it was Call of Cthulhu, but I've learned from bitter experience that such remarks generally only make things worse."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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0fdc523
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Jeremy Beaumont-Jones had been lucky enough to be born rich. He wasn't in the mad oligarch class but once you're past a certain point, the sheer weight of your money sucks in wealth like a financial singularity. If you're sensible enough not to blow it on race horses, cocaine or musical theatre, then it becomes a perpetual-motion money making machine.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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df3b0e8
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I don't know why Nightingale was so surprised--I barely knew four and a half spells and you couldn't have got me to give it up, and that's despite close brushes with death by vampire, hanging, malignant spirit, riot, tigerman, and the ever-present risk of overdoing the magic and getting a brain aneurysm.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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a9c0e30
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Sinister is Latin for 'left', making it the sort of enjoyable schoolboy pun that is such an advert for mixed-gender education.
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puns
latin
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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49297f1
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I did feel a 'something', like a catch in the silence at the moment of creation.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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4894bd9
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Given that all three of us were Londoners, we paused a moment to carry out the ritual of the "valuation of the property." I guessed that, given the area, it was at least a million and change. "Million and a half, easy," said Carey. "More," said Guleed. "If it's freehold."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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30ed602
|
Somebody doesn't know they're not in Kansas anymore,' said Stephanopoulos.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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ecd59bf
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Or as my dad always says: it only becomes a social problem when the working man joins in.
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lower-class
working-class
rivers-of-london
peter-grant
social-problems
social-criticism
hypocrisy
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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5e10420
|
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.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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1e70238
|
Who made the 999 call?" "Dunno," said Purdy. "Mobile, probably." It's officers like Purdy that give the Metropolitan Police its sterling reputation for customer service that makes us the envy of the civilised world."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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ea0783e
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Something round and dirty and white was resting near my foot. It was a skull. I picked it up. 'Is that you, Nicholas?' I asked. 'Put that down, Peter,' said Nightingale. 'You don't know where it's been.
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urban-fantasy
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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051b568
|
But Smithy," said Stephanopoulis. "I don't believe in respectable businessmen. I've been a copper for more than five minutes. And the constable here doesn't think you're respectable either, because it happens he is a card-carrying member of the Workers' Revolutionary Party and so regards all forms of property as a crime against the proletariat." That one caught me by surprise and the best I could manage was "Power to the people."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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56d35fe
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As a typical Londoner, Gurcan had a high tolerance for random thoughtlessness; after all, if you live in the big city there's no point complaining that it's a big city, but even that tolerance has its limit and the name of that limit is 'taking the piss'.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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a91eaaf
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Don't get me wrong, I like the countryside. In fact, some of my best friends are geographical features.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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4a256c9
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A)ny working hypothesis was probably going to involve quantum theory at some point--the part of physics that made my brains trickle out of my ears.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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b6f3efd
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She was slender and dressed like an Edwardian maid, complete with a starched white bib apron over a full black skirt and white cotton blouse. Her face didn't fit her outfit, being too long and sharp-boned, with black almond-shaped eyes. Despite her mob cap she wore her hair loose, a black curtain that fell to her waist. She instantly gave me the creeps and not just because I've seen too many Japanese horror films.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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dc1c42c
|
You know there's always things in life that you have to do despite the fact that you know for certain the outcome is going to be messy, painful, humiliating, or all three.
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humiliation
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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e6e51cf
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The problem with the so-called bloody surveillance state is that it's hard work trying to track someone's movements using CCTV - especially if they're on foot. Part of the problem is that the cameras all belong to different people for different reasons. Westminster Council has a network for traffic violations, the Oxford Street Trading Association has a huge network aimed at shop-lifters and pickpockets, individual shops have their own syst..
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fantasy
cameras
police-procedural
security-cameras
surveillance-society
mystery
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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2a3fbdc
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The bouncer scrutinized my face. "Do I know you?" he asked. No, I thought, but you might remember me from such Saturday-night hits as "Would you please put that punter down I'd like to arrest him," "You can stop kicking him now, the ambulance has arrived," and the classic "If you don't back off right now I'm going to nick you as well."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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6927bd8
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My milkshake brings all the gods to the yard.
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Ben aaronovitch |
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f0c4067
|
when the government decided that in the light of an increased security threat what London really needed was a smaller police force.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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fcd6a4c
|
The general public have a warped view of the speed at which an investigation proceeds. They like to imagine tense conversations going on behind the venetian blinds and unshaven, but ruggedly handsome, detectives working themselves with single-minded devotion into the bottle and marital breakdown. 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 - lik..
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detective
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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a7a1a6b
|
I offered her the flowers, which she took with a delightful laugh. She pulled my head down and kissed me on the cheek. She smelled of cigars and new car seats, horses and furniture polish, Stilton, Belgian chocolate and, behind it all, the hemp and the crowd and the last drop into oblivion." (Tyburn)"
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Ben Aaronovitch |