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There’s nothing like having your girlfriend talk in geological time to make you feel insignificant.
Ben Aaronovitch -
So Newton, like all good seventeenth-century intellectuals, wrote in Latin because that was the international language of science, philosophy and, I found out later, upmarket pornography.
Ben Aaronovitch
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When the government decided that in the light of an increased security threat what London really needed was a smaller police force.
Ben Aaronovitch -
As Martin noted, to the detectives conducting his interview, it was a good thing he'd been inebriated, because otherwise he would have wasted time screaming and running about - especially once he realized he was standing in a pool of blood. Instead, with the slow methodical patience of the drunk and terrified, Martin Turner dialed 999 and asked for the police.
Ben Aaronovitch -
That’s how real men settle their differences, through reasoned discussion and a dispassionate analysis. He farted as I reached the inner door, a sign, I decided, of his respect.
Ben Aaronovitch -
It had a long and varied history, mostly involving crime, prostitution and the theater.
Ben Aaronovitch -
But risking a fair fight – not so easy. That’s why you see those pissed young men doing the dance of the ‘don’t hold me back’ while desperately hoping someone likes them enough to hold them back.
Ben Aaronovitch -
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 entrance so that fleeing punters would grab the closest approximation to whatever it was they wanted before running screaming into the night. I’m
Ben Aaronovitch
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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.
Ben Aaronovitch -
From the individual infantryman’s point of view there really is no such thing as too much personal firepower.
Ben Aaronovitch -
This is a speech we've all heard before. From the con artists who aren't like the burglars, who aren't like the armed robbers, who only ever broke a bone if the victim had it coming and the murderers who made 'one mistake' and are forced to pay for it for the rest of their lives. They want to know what you're doing about the real criminals, the rapists and the paedophiles. Who want to know why you're wasting resources on them when we should be tackling female genital mutilation or political corruption.
Ben Aaronovitch -
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.
Ben Aaronovitch -
That which does not kill us has to get up extra early in the morning if it wants to get us next time.
Ben Aaronovitch -
The majestic equality of the law forbids rich and poor alike from pissing in the streets, sleeping under bridges, and stealing bread.
Ben Aaronovitch
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That which does not kill us does not kill us.
Ben Aaronovitch -
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.
Ben Aaronovitch -
Despite my mum being from a small village in the middle of a forest, I'm not a country person. 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.
Ben Aaronovitch -
This is why magic is worse even than quantum physics. Because, while both spit in the eye of common sense, I've never yet had a Higgs bosun turn up and try to have a conversation with me.
Ben Aaronovitch -
Despite what you think you know, most people don't want to fight, especially when evenly matched. … That's why you see those pissed young men doing the dance of "don't hold me back" while desperately hoping someone likes them enough to hold them back.
Ben Aaronovitch -
There's nothing quite like Latin for disguising the fact that you're making it up as you go along.
Ben Aaronovitch
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In the 1960s the planning department of the London County Council, whose unofficial motto was Finishing What the Luftwaffe Started, decided that what London really needed was a series of orbital motorways driven through its heart.
Ben Aaronovitch -
That’s the nature of the beast. We are what we are.
Ben Aaronovitch -
I’d found a seventeenth-century map of the rivers of London.
Ben Aaronovitch -
Gave us the traditional look of weary outrage that you always get from someone who thinks they don’t have time for this shit.
Ben Aaronovitch