The word ‘bollocks’ is one of the most beautiful and flexible in the English language. It can be used to express emotional states ranging from ecstatic surprise to weary resignation in the face of ine...
THE TROUBLE with the old boy network is you can never be really sure whether it’s switched on or not and whether it’s operating in your interest or some other old boy’s.
Something round and dirty and white was resting near my foot. It was a skull. I picked it up.‘Is that you, Nicholas?’ I asked.‘Put that down, Peter,’ said Nightingale. ‘You don’t know where it’s been.
So into the woods we went—it was surprisingly noisy. Especially one loud bird whose chirping sounded far too cheerful for the middle of the night.
So Newton, like all good seventeenth-century intellectuals, wrote in Latin because that was the international language of science, philosophy and, I found out later, upmarket pornography.
Round and round and round we go and where we stop nobody knows.
My mum translated this in her head to witchfinder, which was good because like most West Africans, she considered witchfinding a more respectable profession than policeman.
Keep breathing,’ I said. ‘It’s a habit you don’t want to break.
Inside, it was very dark but I am, if not exactly a master, then definitely an apprentice in the secret arts. And as such I laugh in the face of darkness.
If you overdo it, there are consequences.What kind of consequences?Strokes, brain hemorrhages, aneurysms...How do you know when you have overdone it?When you have a stroke, brain hemorrhage or an aneu...
I left in a hurry before he could change his mind, but I want to make it clear that at no point did I break into a skip
I know it’s hard, Peter, she’d said. But if you could contain your erudition and ready wit for just a little while we’d be most grateful. Am I allowed to be cheeky? I’d asked. No you’re fucking not, s...
I have an idea, I said.This better not be a cunning plan, said Leslie.Nightingale looked blank, but at least it got a chuckle from Dr Walid.
Even in these days of eBay and superencrypted anonymous purchasing over the Internet, the safest way to buy stolen stuff is to meet a total stranger and hand over a wedge of untraceable cash. They don...
Don’t get me wrong, I like the countryside. In fact, some of my best friends are geographical features.
An argument, said Dr. Walid. It’s an argument of wizards.
But the first rule about a black woman’s hair is you don’t talk about a black woman’s hair. And the second rule is you don’t ever touch a black woman’s hair without getting written permission first. A...
[...] I find it helpful to quote the wisdom of my father, who once told me, Who knows why the fuck anything happens?
You never said you used to play Dungeon and Dragons, Lesley had said when I explained my reasoning. I’d been tempted to tell her that I was thirteen at the time, and anyway it was Call of Cthulhu, but...
You know there's always things in life that you have to do despite the fact that you know for certain the outcome is going to be messy, painful, humiliating, or all three.