The Metropolitan Police Service is still, despite what people think, a working-class organisation and as such rejects totally the notion of an officer class. That is why every newly minted constable, regardless of their educational background, has to spend a two-year probationary period as an ordinary plod on the streets. This is because nothing builds character like being abused, spat at and vomited by members of the public.

He was calling it an atonic seizure because, even if he didn't know why it had happened, it was important to give it a cool name.

The study of the victim is called victimology because everything sounds better with and ology tacked on the end.

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

When you're a boy your life can be measured out as a series of uncomfortable conversations reluctantly initiated by adults in an effort to tell you things that you either already know or really don't want to know.

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

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.