Quotes from Ben Aaronovitch

A London copper doesn't like to intrude upon a traveler camp with anything less than a van full of bodies in riot gear—it's considered disrespectful otherwise.

I wake up the next morning to find Indigo on the bed with me, her head resting on my hip. "Why didn't you stay on the floor?" I ask. "I'm not used to sleeping on my own," she says. "Do the scratchy thing.

You'll need lots of chips to go with that lot." "And salt too, ha ha." "Ha ha." "We aren't going around to other shops buying up all their vinegar, are we?" "No, now we need some plastic buckets.

One of his more famous sound bites was, 'If you want something done, hire someone competent and then give them what they ask for.

Nightingale was against it from the start, said we should send in the RAF and bomb the camp from altitude. He said it was the only way to be sure." He gave me a puzzled look. "Did I say something funny?

the waiting areas maintained the unique combination of cramped busyness and barren inhumanity that was the glory of British architecture in the second half of the twentieth century.

Are there rules?' 'No gods, no staffs, first man to stay down for the count loses and we suspend the contest if the building collapses.' - on magical duels

Ghosts, I was thinking, memories – I wasn't sure there was a difference.

Class-war evil supernatural black fungus. I love it.

Will you be all right driving in this snow?" She found that hilarious. "This is not snow," she said. "Where I'm from, you know, you have snow when you can't find your car the next morning.

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.

For operational reasons," says Indigo, "you should call me Gaspode." "Gaspode?" "That's my cover name," says Indigo. "Part of my legend.

MIU was still stuffed into their overheated office space. Luckily somebody had sprung for an industrial-sized cooling fan with a face the same diameter as a dustbin lid and an unfortunate tendency to blow any unsecured paperwork out the nearest window. If we'd had a green screen we could have shot the live elements to a low budget disaster movie.

We walk across the bridge and Indigo explains that collies are Sugar Dogs, dachshunds, terriers and other dogs bred to catch rats are Rogers, while German shepherds were designated Ables, although Indigo didn't know why.

IT'S A sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.

We stopped and listened. Just on the cusp of hearing I detected a rhythmic pounding, more a vibration in the concrete than a sound. 'Drums,' I said and then because I couldn't resist it. 'Drums in the deep.' 'Drum and Bass in the deep,' said Kumar.

I listened to make sure she wasn't coming up the stairs and had a poke through the underwear drawers but got nothing except a vague sense of being really unprofessional.

It's because I'm a rat,' he said. 'Isn't it?' 'You're not really a rat,' I said. 'I'm a rat and this is a violation of the human rights act.' I really wish members of the public would bother to read that bloody act before quoting from it. 'No it isn't,' I said. 'Apart from anything else, if you really are a rat, then the Human Rights Act doesn't apply.

Before London swallowed it whole, Camden Town was the fork in the road best known for a coaching inn called the Mother Red Cap. It served as a last-chance stop for beer, highway robbery and gonorrhoea before heading north into the wilds of Middlesex.

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. Alexander

Lady Ty looked at Fleet and they both giggled. I hoped that it was the alcohol because I didn't like the idea of the Goddess of the River Tyburn giggling—it was disturbing on so many levels.

Sir Isaac Newton legendarily wrote the famous Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica, which gave us principles that a couple of hundred years later were good enough to land a man on the moon. Then he wrote the slightly less well known Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Artes Magicis, which codified the magical techniques that allow me to inconvenience paper targets and Nightingale to demolish small agricultural buildings. "There

He's been banned,' said Lesley. 'Until he passes the advanced driver's course.' 'Is that because you crashed that ambulance into the river?' asked Abigail.

He farted as I reached the inner door as a sign, I decided, of his respect. Alexander