Editing Inspector Morse (section)

===Habits and personality===
Morse is the embodiment of middle-class Englishness, with a set of prejudices and assumptions to match, although his background, being the son of a taxi driver, might be considered working class. He claims to have a private income from his father driving for the [[Aga Khan]], but this may be a joke.<ref>''[[The Dead of Jericho]]'', chapter 21</ref> Due to his manners and bearing, he is sometimes considered [[gentleman detective]], the staple of British [[Detective fiction#Famous fictional detectives|detective fiction]], in contrast to the working-class lifestyle of his assistant [[Inspector Lewis|Lewis]]. In the novels, Lewis is [[Welsh people|Welsh]], but in the TV series this is altered to a [[Tyneside]] ([[Geordie]]) background, appropriately for the actor [[Kevin Whately]]. Morse is in his forties at the start of the books (''Service of all the Dead'', Chapter Six: "… a bachelor still, forty-seven years old …"), and Lewis slightly younger (e.g. ''The Secret of Annexe 3'', Chapter Twenty-Six: "a slightly younger man – another policeman, and one also in plain clothes"). John Thaw was 45 at the beginning of shooting the TV series and Kevin Whately was 36.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}}

Morse's relationships with authority, the establishment, bastions of power and the status quo, are markedly ambiguous, as are some of his relations with women. He is frequently portrayed as patronising female characters, and once stereotyped the female sex as not naturally prone to crime, being caring and non-violent, but also often empathises with women. He is not shy to show his liking for attractive women and often dates those involved in cases. Indeed, a woman he falls in love with sometimes turns out to be the culprit.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}}

Morse is highly intelligent. He is a [[crossword]] addict<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/crosswords/crossword-blog/2012/aug/09/top-10-crosswords-fiction-inspector-morse|title=Top 10 crosswords in fiction, no 3: Inspector Morse|first=Alan|last=Connor|date=9 August 2012|website=The Guardian|access-date=15 November 2018}}</ref> and dislikes grammatical and spelling errors; in every personal or private document that he receives, he manages to point out at least one mistake. He claims that his approach to crime-solving is deductive, and one of his key tenets is that "there is a 50 per cent chance that the person who finds the body is the murderer". Morse uses immense intuition and his fantastic memory to apprehend the perpetrator.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}}

Among Morse's conservative tastes are that he likes to drink [[real ale]] and [[whisky]], (which he calls “brain food”) and likes to drink while thinking about cases despite doctors’ advice on cutting down. In the early novels, Morse drives a [[Lancia]].<ref name="auto"/> In the television and radio productions (and reprints of the novels), this is altered to a [[Jaguar Mark 2]]. His favourite music is opera, which is echoed in the soundtracks to the television series. The original music is by [[Barrington Pheloung]].
Which has been made into Morse Code and spells out Inspector Morse.

His dying words, said to Jim Strange, (who liked calling Morse, “matey” due to their long working relationship together), are "Thank Lewis for me."<ref>"The Remorseful Day"</ref>

Morse is portrayed as being an [[atheist]].<ref>{{cite web| url = https://britishmysterybooks.com/colin-dexter| url-status = dead| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20191221231509/https://britishmysterybooks.com/colin-dexter| archive-date = 21 December 2019| title = Colin Dexter – Inspector Morse {{!}} British Detective Stories}}</ref> However, in some scenes, he does entertain the possibility of God and/or quote the Bible from memory, agreeing with the phrases, as he does with lines from various literary books/texts.