Whispers Under Ground (Rivers of London #3)

by Ben Aaronovitch

I would say to them as they shook in their fear, “Now what is your paltry book, Or the Phidian touch of the chisel’s point, That can make the marble look, To this monster of ours, that for ages lay In the depths of the dreaming earth, Till we brought him out with a cheer and a shout, And hammer’d him into birth?” —“The Engine,” ALEXANDER ANDERSON

Struck by an unanticipated burst of maternal pride she proceeded to outline my new career path to her friends and relatives, a body I estimate to comprise at least twenty percent of the expatriate Sierra Leonean community currently in the UK.

So just chalk it up to pixie dust or quantum entanglement, which was the same thing as pixie dust except with the word “quantum” in it.

Ugh. No, quantum mechanics is not the same thing as pixie dust.

The jacket was good quality fabric cut really well—definitely bespoke.

This is an example of Peter Grant's subtle snobbery. I have no idea how one identifies "good quality fabric", and even less how one knows it was "cut really well". What does that even mean?

Colin MacInnes’s London trilogy

AFTER WORLD War Two there wasn’t much left of English wizardry except for Nightingale, the walking wounded, and a number of practitioners too old or not good enough to get themselves killed in that final convulsive battle in the forests near Ettersberg.

So we decided to adopt an intelligence-led approach to his apprehension. Intelligence-led policing being when you work out what you’re doing before you run in and get your head blown off.

Late-night kebab shops fulfill a very particular ecological niche—that of feeding stations for people spilling out of the pubs and clubs. Since the clientele tends to be pissed young men who have utterly failed to pull that night, the staff are always pleased to have the police hanging about.

in their haste to get rid of you they will boil down their role in the investigation to a sentence. Thus, “We did a joint evaluation of video evidence encompassing all possible access points in conjunction with BTP and CLP, and despite widening the parameters of our assessment to include registered and nonregistered cameras in the high probability zones, we have as yet to achieve a positive identification of James Gallagher prior to his appearance at Baker Street” becomes: “We’ve checked every CCTV camera in the system and it’s as if the fucker beamed down from the Starship Enterprise.”

“Kumar and I,” said Nightingale. “Not ‘me and Kumar.’ ” Nightingale periodically attempted to improve my grammar and was curiously deaf to what I consider a pretty convincing and sophisticated argument that the rules of English grammar are largely an artificial construct with little or no bearing on the language as it is spoke.

This time we’d borrowed the appropriate waist-high orange waders from a surly man from Thames Water. The CO19 boys insisted on retaining their dark blue ballistic vests and helmets as well, which gave them the unfortunate appearance of modern ninjas who’d given up on the whole stealth thing below the waist.

“No floors,” said Lesley. “They haven’t been installed yet,” I said. “You can see the points where the load bearing beams were going to slot in.” “What’s with him?” asked Guleed. “He once arrested an architect,” said Kumar.

“Like the ghost,” I said. “Except you’re not to get on the train tracks, or break into private property, or stay out all night, or put yourself in danger in any shape or form.” “Can I bunk off school?” she asked. “No, you cannot bunk off school.” “I’m not sure I’m really understanding the positive aspects of this arrangement,” said Abigail.