Sunday e-mail 1st December

It's all mulled wine and protests

A very big welcome to all new subscribers! It’s great to have you on board. Yes, I know every Substacker says that – but here at Crime & Psychology we actually mean it! We do. Come in. Let me take your coat. Sit down, please. Let me fetch you a drink. I just got some new sherry in. That nice chap at the shop says it’s good and I’ve been wanting to try it. Or would you prefer something hot? It’s starting to get cold, this 1^st of December. Winter’s making itself known. Mulled wine?

You, yes, I’m speaking to you. And you and you and you. How wonderful to have so many new subscribers! When I started this venture, about a yearago, I imagined that Substack growth would be logarithmic. It would start slow, in other words, but pick up as time went on. For once, I was right. There have been more additions to our Crime & Psychology family in the last six weeks than in the previous three months. Long may it continue!

The best way to spread the word about any creative endeavour, of course, is word of mouth. I you enjoy Crime & Psychology - if you like these e-mails, bullet lists, and newsletters - could you do me a favour? Tell one other person. Just one. Let’s keep welcoming more and more people into the Crime & Psychology family.

I use that word ‘family’ deliberately (I’ve done it three times now). That’s because family has been much on my mind lately. This week’s newsletter is about exactly that – laws recently passed in various parts of the western world, banning cousin marriage.

Why do we need to know about that? You may well ask. I wondered myself, until I looked into it. Cousin marriage is important. So is regulation by the state. So important, in fact, that some have claimed that regulation lies at the root of that old bugbear ‘western exceptionalism’. Certainly, it helps explain the kind of individualistic, capitalist society that I, and probably you, live in, were brought up in, and probably consider ‘normal’. In fact, whatever ‘normal’ means, it’s not that.

I’d tell you more but don’t want to spoil the surprise. For now, let me just say that I hope you enjoy the newsletter as much as I enjoyed researching the subject.

What else do we have to look forward to in the coming months? How will Crime & Psychology see out the old year and see in the new? Let me tell you. Drink up, please, there’s more mulled wine where that came from and I can’t drink it all myself.

Click here to buy me a mulled wine. That’d be nice. I like mulled wine.

I’ve got to tell you, I’m excited about some of the material I have lined up for you. Think of Christmas gifts, New Year’s gifts, Valentine’s gifts… Don’t spit out the wine in amazement when I tell you that you’ll very soon get to read about a prison drug project that happened shortly before the Summer of Love, the state of offender profiling, and the greatest super-villain ever! As if that weren’t enough, Crime & Psychology fan, I also have a special announcement to make… At some point very soon, my Masters student, Arjen, will be here to share with you the secrets of a forensic technique known as Statement Verification Analysis. What’s that? You’ll have to wait to find out! But trust me, it’ll be worth it. Arjen is a top bloke and he was an excellent student. I know you’ll make him welcome here at Crime & Psychology.

Ask yourself: Where else on the internet can you read about Batman, LSD, incest, and Statement Verification? Crime & Psychology – it’s all killer, no filler!

Please remember, if you enjoy the newsletter, please restack, subscribe, and think about pledging a little cash, too. It all encourages me to keep going and keep delivering this material to you!  

What’s happened this week? Let’s see:

Here’s a mix of bullet points, some more serious than others:

FILM: Has the massive wave of remakes and sequels finally subsided? Can we go back to the cinema secure in the anticipation of seeing something new and original? In a word, no. But at least there are some signs to give us hope. Hugh Grant’s crime/horror flick Heretic was not only quite effective, but also came with the sheer pleasure of a title that didn’t have a number in it. Speak No Evil wasn’t bad, either.

PULP FICTION: You may remember that I began the year determined to read a lot of this. Results have been mixed, partly because I was sidetracked in the summer with some hefty classics. I’ve been reading a lot of graphic novels lately, through absolutely no fault of my own. My conclusions so far, for what they’re worth: Margaret Millar and Robert Bloch are terribly under-rated. David Goodis, on the other hand, may be the opposite.

GRAPHIC NOVELS: Let me recommend one to you. Tom King and Greg Smallwood combined their talents to bring us two volumes of The Human Target. Yes, the story is located in the DC Comics universe and, yes, it does feature superheroes, but, even if you’re allergic to that kind of thing, don’t let it put you off. This is real. The Human Target is beautifully drawn and elaborately plotted and no one in our galaxy has yet managed to put it down unfinished.

PROTESTS: It’s like the 1970s all over again. Every day, the UK news seems to feature a riot or protest. Our government seems to have a talent for squeezing protests out of the kind of people who rarely protest. Recently we’ve seen farmers, deeply upset by changes to the tax regulations, drive their tractors into London. There is perceptible unrest in these small islands. If someone in the government would like to pay me consultancy rates, I’ll happily tell them why and what to do about it.

SENTENCING: Here’s one course of action the government could adopt right away: change the perception that the UK has distinct, parallel justice systems. When he isn’t being called ‘Starmer: Farmer Harmer’, Keir Starmer is being called ‘Two-Tier Keir’. Every day we learn about another sentencing decision that seems, well, plain wrong. The judges in question may perhaps have very good reasons for their sentencing decisions – what do I know? – but that is simply not the general perception out here where the regular people live. A whole lot of voters would like to have some recent decisions explained to then very carefully.

Bang a blue button, Crime & Psychology fan!

Images courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.