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 venetian blinds and unshaven, but ruggedly handsome, detectives working themselves with single-minded devotion into the bottle and marital breakdown. The truth is that at the end of the day, unless you've generated some sort of lead, you go home and get on with the important things in life - like drinking and sleeping, and if you're lucky, a relationship with the gender and sexual orientation of your choice.

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.

The motto of West African cooking is that if the food doesn't set fire to the tablecloth the cook is being stingy with the pepper.

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

Every male in the world thinks he's an excellent driver. Every copper who's ever had to pick an eyeball out of a puddle knows that most of them are kidding themselves.

I gave the prescribed Metropolitan Police "first greeting". "Oi!" I said "What do you think you're doing?

On the plus side, there were no rioters in sight but on the minus side this was probably because everywhere I looked was on fire.