He kept notes on the slang of thugs and criminals, and wrote up a guide, so his cops and reporters would know what the bad guys were talking about when they went on like this: "He told Jack as how Bill had flimped a yack, and pinched a swell of a spark-fawney".
There are the sounds of late autumn: the yack of jackdaws, a starling imitating a blackbird, a robin's thin song, the chatter of sparrows picking through a nearby gutter.
Instantly recognisable, full of daft choreography and lyrics such as "I'm a Big Mac, make you want to eat that like: 'yum, yum, yum, yack a to the yack'," it shamelessly sounds like something she could have released in 2005.
Drunk drivers are responsible for 85 times the number of road deaths as the much-commentated-upon road rage, but groups like Mothers Against Drunk Drivers found it impossible to compete with media-friendly psychologists happy to yack on about road rage.
So, more yack about fewer facts?
If you want to talk to me on Twitter, have a yack @murpharoo Updated at 10.59pm BST.
(Desperate to leave a sleepover before his host turns on "A Nightmare on Elm Street," David resolves "to jab my fingers down my throat and make myself yack").
Oh, boy, I think I'm going to yack.
