This I know for a fact: the reason African women have children is so that there's someone else to do the housework..

Questions would be asked. Answers would be ignored..

You know, your species [humans] has the most amazing capacity for self-deception, matched only by its ingenuity in trying to destroy itself..

That which does not kill us has to get up extra early in the morning if it wants to get us next time..

The Metropolitan Police Service is still, despite what people think, a working-class organisation and as such rejects totally the notion of an office….

...good-Samaritanism in London is considered an extreme sport - like base-jumping or crocodile-wrestling..

In the winter she curls up around a good book and dreams away the cold..

Coffee arrived and the espresso was excellent, like an aromatic electric fence..

Conflict resolution,' said Nightingale. 'Is this what they teach at Hendon these days?' 'Yes, sir,' I said. 'But don't worry, they also teach us how ….

What do you think you're doing?.

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 v….

Carved above the lintel were the words SCIENTIA POTESTAS EST. Science points east, I wondered? Science is portentous, yes? Science protests too much.….

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 t….

If you just warn people, they often simply ignore you. But if you ask them a question, then they have to think about it. And once they start to think….

What's the biggest thing you've zapped with a fireball?' I asked. 'That would be a tiger,'said Nightingale. 'Well don't tell Greenpeace,' I said. 'Th….

...don't ask me why I know what an Edwardian smoking jacket looks like: let's just say it has something to do with Doctor Who and leave it at that..

My Dad says that being a Londoner has nothing to do with where you're born. He says that there are people who get off a jumbo jet at Heathrow, go thr….

Actually I'd always thought he sat in the library with a slim volume of metaphysical poetry until the commissioner called him on the bat phone and su….

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 h….

If you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it's your safest bet..

This is your brain on magic..