It was true that the city could still throw shadows filled with mystifying figures from its past, whose grip on the present could be felt on certain strange days, when the streets were dark with rain and harmful ideas.
Christopher FowlerStichwörter: past rain ideas strangeness shadows city streets
I hate the endless admonishments of a nanny state that lives in fear of its lawyers. While colonies of dim-witted traffic wardens swarm about looking for minor parking infringements, nobody seems to notice that our very social fabric is falling apart.
Christopher FowlerStichwörter: society
Statistics show that the nature of English crime is reverting to its oldest habits. In a country where so many desire status and wealth, petty annoyances can spark disproportionately violent behaviour. We become frustrated because we feel powerless, invisible, unheard. We crave celebrity, but that’s not easy to come by, so we settle for notoriety. Envy and bitterness drive a new breed of lawbreakers, replacing the old motives of poverty and the need for escape. But how do you solve crimes which no longer have traditional motives?
Christopher FowlerStichwörter: wealth violence statistics poverty crime status british habits motives crime-solving powerless
Clutter, either mental or physical, is the sign of a healthy curiosity.
Christopher FowlerLife is a very beautiful dream. I'm so glad I chose not to wake up from it just yet
Christopher FowlerLook at this fog. The damp gets right into your bones. It's doing my chest no good at all. I'll need a vapour bath." Bryant pulled down his scarf and peered over the sodden hedge. Dew had formed on his bald head and ears. He resembled a minor Tolkien character.
"You're getting old before your time," warned May. "I can't imagine what you'll look like in your eighties."
"I'm ageing gracefully, which means not trying to look like a member of Concrete Blimp."
"I assume you mean Led Zeppelin...
The traffic system needs a complete rethink," mused Bryant as the unit's only allocated vehicle, a powder-blue Vauxhall with a thoroughly thrashed engine, accelerated through Belsize Park. "Look at these road signs. Ministerial graffiti."
"It's no use lecturing on the problem, Arthur. That's why your driving examiner failed you thirty-seven times."
"What makes you such a great driver?'
"I don't hit things.
His bedroom was a reflection of Bryant's mind, its untidy shelves filled with games and puzzles stacked in ancient boxes, statues and mementoes competing for space with books on every subject imaginable, from Sensation and Perception in the History of Experimental Psychology to Illustrated British Ballads and A History of Indian Philosophy.
"What are you reading at the moment?' asked May.
"Batman," said Bryant. "The drawings are terribly good.
Stichwörter: humor reading books
When may did so, he found every cup and saucer, plate, vase, and bowl standing arranged across the floor like pieces in a scaled-up chess game.
"The Whitstable family tree," Bryant explained, entering and setting down his tea tray. "It's the only way I could get it sorted out in my head. I had to see them properly laid out, who was descended from whom." He pointed to a milk jug. "Daisy Whitstable is bottom left-hand corner, by the fireguard. Next to her is the egg cup, brother Tarquin... Now, pass me Marion and Alfred Whitstable over there."
"What's their significance?"
"We need them to drink out of.
Big fucking mistake man. You can't be near her. Don't you get it? [...] She's part of this city. Do you see? I mean, really part of it. You hurt her, you - hurt all of this.
Christopher FowlerStichwörter: love alienation postmordernism
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