“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.”

“Not being invited in is one of the boxes on the “suspicious behavior” bingo form that every copper carries around in their head along with “stupidly overpowerful dog” and being too quick to supply an alibi. Fill all the boxes and you too could win an all-­expenses-paid visit to your local police station.”

“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.”

“When I was a kid I used to drink from the tap all the time. I'd run back into the flat all hot and sweaty from playing and didn't even bother putting it in a glass, just turned the tap on and stuck my mouth underneath it. If my mom caught me doing it she used to scold me, but my dad just said that I had to be careful. 'What if a fish jumped out?' he used to say. 'You'd swallow it before you knew it was there.' Dad was always saying stuff like that and it wasn't until I was seventeen that I realised it was because he was stoned all the time.”

“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.”

“What's the biggest thing you've zapped with a fireball?' I asked.'That would be a tiger,'said Nightingale.'Well don't tell Greenpeace,' I said. 'They're an endagered species.''Not that sort of tiger,' said Nightingale. 'A Panzer-kampfwagen sechs Ausf E.'I stared at him. 'You knocked out a Tiger tank with a fireball?''Actually I knocked out two,' said Nightingale. 'I have to admit that the first one took three shots, one to disable the tracks, one through the driver's eye slot and one down the commander's hatch - brewed up rather nicely.”

“The clever people at CERN are smashing particles together in the hope that Doctor Who will turn up and tell them to stop”