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 summoned him into action. Holy paranormal activity, Nightingale - to the Jag mobile.

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.

It's a sad fact of modern life that if you drive long enough, sooner or later you must leave London behind.

Carved above the lintel were the words SCIENTIA POTESTAS EST. Science points east, I wondered? Science is portentous, yes? Science protests too much. Scientific potatoes rule. Had I stumbled on the lair of dangerous plant geneticists?

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.

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

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