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29eb011
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There was also a great absence of people, including behind the mahogany-topped reception desk. Now, there's a time when an unlocked premises is a positive boon to a police officer as in -
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police
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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9818ca8
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I'm working on several theories," I said. "But I'm currently favoring the hypothesis that the moon has a seemingly arbitrary effect on magic because it likes to piss me off." "That's a theory with a high degree of applicability to other spheres of life," he said. "Yes it is," I said, and we spontaneously fist"
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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adf7637
|
The rise and fall of Teresa Cornelys proves three things: that the wages of sin are high, that you should "just say no" to opera, and that it's always wise to diversify your investment portfolio."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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6ece809
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I was pleased to see that even back in the glory days of the Folly people left their mugs of tea on their magical textbooks.
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the-folly
peter-grant
tea
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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f171fd5
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I don't mind getting drunk, but there always comes a moment in the evening when I find myself watching myself bumping into things and thinking--I'm bored of this, can I have full control of my brain back, please?
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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1270af3
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So magic is real," I said. "Which makes you a ... what?" "A wizard." "Like Harry Potter?" Nightingale sighed. "No," he said. "Not like Harry Potter." "In what way?" "I'm not a fictional character," said Nightingale."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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b4d7afd
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People don't like to speak ill of the dead even when they're monsters, let alone when they're loved ones. People like to forget any bad things that someone did and why should they remember?
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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71f8775
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The night may be dark and full of terrors, I thought, but I've got a big stick. 'Is
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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5d8640e
|
It's important for a man to know his limitations, and my limitations started at moving to Peckham and hanging around with yardies, postcode wannabes and those weird, skinny white kids who don't get the irony in Eminem.
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limitations
london
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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a739324
|
Science doesn't have all the answers, you know." "It's got all the best questions, though," I said."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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49fe90c
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I didn't tell him that it was all stored as binary information on rapidly spinning shiny discs, partly because I'd have to look up the details myself, but mostly because by the time he'd understood the technology it would have been replaced by something else.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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05bd237
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Most people don't see half of what's in front of them. Your visual cortex does a shit load of imaging processing before the signal even gets to your brain, whose priorities are still checking the ancestral Savannah for dangerous predators, edible berries and climable trees. That's why a sudden cat in the night can make you jump and some people when distracted, can walk right out in front of a bus. Your brain just isn't interested in those l..
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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a437ccc
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One thing for certain, Abigail who lived up the road was going on my watch list. In fact I was going to create a watch list just so I could put Abigail at the top of it.
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watch-list
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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068098b
|
A London copper doesn't like to intrude upon a traveller camp with anything less than a van full of bodies in riot gear - it's considered disrespectful otherwise.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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5d19424
|
When I'm considering this 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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2ee52ec
|
I may be a city boy, but I'm fairly certain that the greasy purple and red squishy bits are supposed to stay inside the sheep and not be sprayed across a surprisingly large area. "Animal attack?" I asked."
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intestines
sheep
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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62321ac
|
I woke in the hour before dawn, stuck in that strange state where the memory of your dreams is still powerful enough to motivate your actions.
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waking
waking-up
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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2c258cb
|
Then he smiled at me and for that moment, and just that moment, I forgave him everything--everything--because now I knew what joy looked like and I was part of it.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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a5a9d1b
|
Like a lot of London, Richmond town centre had been laid out back when town planning was something that happened to other people.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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29557c7
|
With a grunt he levered himself to his feet, causing the chair to bang against the bookcase behind him and set the various objet d'bollocks rattling.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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0427406
|
Seen something?" asked Nightingale, making me jump. "Jesus Christ," I said. "Not on this river," said Nightingale. "Not even Blake thought that was possible." We"
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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f7b5ecb
|
This book is dedicated to all the people who get up and do something about it, whatever "it" is and however small the thing it is they do."
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it
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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f1e6e08
|
Could it have been anyone, or was it destiny? When I'm considering this 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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52f4ae0
|
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, 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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Ben Aaronovitch |
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a01e89e
|
Caratacus suffered the double indignity of being taken to Rome in chains and having an opera written about him by Elgar.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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00307c2
|
I suspected Molly wanted the pictures to send to her friends on Twitter and Facebook, the ones that I was not supposed to know about. I didn't dare ask because we have an unspoken agreement--I don't question what she does on my computer when I'm out and, in return, she doesn't murder me in my sleep. Back
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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170e278
|
In 1666, following an unfortunate workplace accident, the city of London burnt down.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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18f4694
|
Most archaeology in London these days is rescue archaeology - projects designed to preserve as much as possible from the relentless cash-driven redevelopment. It's not a new problem. Ask a medievalist about Victorian cellars or an Iron Age specialist about medieval ploughing - but take snacks, because you're going to be there for a while.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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f045e8d
|
Fish and chip night was a Kumar family tradition that dated back to when Jaget was courting his wife and they used to meet in the last white English-owned fish and chip shop in Wembley on the basis that none of their relatives would go in there. "It"
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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1ddad96
|
When you arrive unexpectedly at someone's house you go in through the front door, often after making sure you've got a couple of mates waiting round the back. For a business, especially the kind that involves big trucks and heavy metal, it's always better to go in through the back. The customer-facing part of any modern business is purposely designed to be as politely unhelpful as possible. If you go in from the rear, the customer-facing st..
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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489f9a1
|
We seem to be sitting around waiting for the next fucking disaster." he said, which went into the official log as - DCI Seawoll felt that our operational posture was too reactive."
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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76503a2
|
Zach looked at Carey in consternation, obviously wondering if we were using the rare good cop/loony cop interrogation technique.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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ab3ad8c
|
I think it's designed to flower open like a Chocolate Orange." Me and Lesley then had to explain Terry's Chocolate Orange to Nightingale. "Not unlike a practitioner's hand opening to reveal a werelight," said Nightingale. "Not unlike at all," I said. Yeah, exactly like that I thought."
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broken-homes
rivers-of-london
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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8c80444
|
He was one of those people who constantly seems to be having a conversation with someone other than the person he's actually talking to--presumably someone much more politically committed. And interested.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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5808422
|
I'd found a seventeenth-century map of the rivers of London.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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120a34c
|
Norwich station has your standard late-Victorian brick, cast-iron, and glass shed retrofitted with the bright molded plastic of various fast-food franchises. I gratefully staggered in the direction of Upper Crust and considered asking if I could stick my head under their coffee spigot but settled for a couple of double espressos and a chicken tikka masala baguette instead.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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ae23329
|
but 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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Ben Aaronovitch |
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8c2922a
|
People are conditioned by the media to think that black women are all shouting, and head shaking and girlfriending and "oh no you didn't" and if they're not sassy, then they're dignified and downtrodden and soldiering on and "I don't understand why folks just can't get along." But if you see a black woman go quiet the way Tyburn did, the eyes bright, the lips straight and the face still as a death mask, you have made an enemy for life, do n..
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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8555c0c
|
Dominic tooled up five minutes later in a ten-year-old Nissan pickup truck that had been painted a non-standard khaki, dipped in dried mud up to the wheel arches and then randomly smacked with a sledgehammer to give it that Somali Technical look. I found myself checking to see if there was a mount for a fifty-caliber machine gun in the back.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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3ee8806
|
The railway hit Harrow on the Hill in 1880 and it's been downhill ever since, culminating in one of those formless red brick shopping centres which artfully combines a complete lack of aesthetic quality with a total disregard for the utilitarian function for which it is built. As a result, your average shopper has only to spend ten minutes inside to be reduced to a state of quiet desperation. Primark has the right idea, being right by the e..
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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c5ddec4
|
The word 'bollocks' is one of the most beautiful and flexible in the English language. It can be used to express emotional states ranging from ecstatic surprise to weary resignation in the face of inevitable disaster. And
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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968c9b3
|
Jazz vampires,' said Stephanopoulos. 'I wish I hadn't started calling them that,' I said.
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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d9d0288
|
I didn't think that Herefordshire Social Services would be best pleased about me dumping a poorly socialised pre-teen with mind control powers on them.
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irony
social-services
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Ben Aaronovitch |
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08c3e0c
|
Leslie said that the capacity not to notice a traditional Dutch folk-dancing band walk up behind you was not a survival characteristic in the complex fast-paced world of the modern policing environment. I'd like to point out that I was trying to give directions to a slightly deaf tourist at the time and anyway it was a Swedish dance troupe.
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Ben Aaronovitch |