BookblogbyCari (345 KP) rated The Psychopath Test in Books
Sep 11, 2018
It logs the course of events taken by Jon Ronson as he interviews some people who are deemed crazy, or psychopathic, and some people who diagnose psychological traits. The start of Ronson’s journey is intriguing - it begins when various academics, predominately neuroscientists, are sent mysterious and cryptic packages. They all rush onto online forums trying to figure out what it’s all about. Unfortunately, this section comes to an abrupt and disappointing conclusion (no spoilers).
This all changes in Chapter 2, however. Here, Ronson meets a man, Tony, who claims to have faked mental illness in order to get put into a psychiatric facility rather than a traditional prison. The Scientologists are on his side, and they send Ronson Broadmoor’s file on Tony, but with significant omissions, which shed a whole new light on why Tony should be incarcerated.
Chapter 3 describes how in the 1960’s psychiatrist Elliot Barker, held several nude LSD-induced psychotherapy sessions for psychopaths. In Chapter 4, Ronson goes on a conference to learn about Bob Hare’s psychopath checklist, and by Chapter 5, he’s using it in an interview with a leader of a death squad, Toto Constant. In Chapter 6, he uses it in an interview with Al Dunlan, who apparently enjoyed firing 6.000 people from their jobs.
Following a brief interlude to discuss the media, conspiracy theorists and the second coming, the theme of psychopathy is picked up again in Chapter 9 which looks at criminal profiling, and how it was once used to lure one particular suspect into an unwarranted arrest.
Ronson goes off on another tangent in Chapter 10, which discusses the (very real) problem of an apparent ballooning of mental illness diagnoses. Here he tells the tale of what happened when a 4-year-old girl was given 10 pills a day for “childhood bipolar” disorder.
In Ronson’s concluding chapter, he attends a tribunal for the Tony of Chapter 2, and Tony’s fate is decided (no spoilers). By this point, Tony’s charisma has got Ronson taken in, in spite of Tony showing several psychopathic traits.
My take away from the book is that people will have eccentricities, diagnosis or not, and the way to tell if someone is dangerous, is by their actions. Ronson himself has spotted psychopathic traits in himself, despite being overly anxious and not the slightest bit evil. The book sheds a lot of light, not only on the nature of obtaining a diagnosis, but also on its implications.
Whilst I do recommend the book, this book is most definitely not a thorough analysis of the mental health industry, nor the criminal profiling industry. But for entertainment purposes it gets top marks. If you are looking for a more authoritative book on the mental health industry and diagnosis, I recommend Saving Normal by Allen Frances.
Darren (1599 KP) rated Villain (1971) in Movies
Jul 25, 2019
Vic continues to use his business connections to stay ahead of the police, with Wolfe Lissner (McShane) being the latest person the inspectors are turning to try and give up Vic’s secrets.
Thoughts on Villain
Characters – Vic Dakin runs London with his criminal activities, he is feared by most people and if you cross him, you will get hurt if not killed. He has become over confident that he can get away with anything, making him one of the prime targets for everyone involved in law. Wolf Lissner works for Vic, he is one of the youngster members of the crew and the one that the police are trying to use to turn on him, even if he the one person that Vic will always turn to. Bob Matthews is the inspector that has been trying to bring down Vic for years, he has risen up the ranks, got the people in the gang, but never been able to get the conviction. Gerald Draycott is the politician that is being blackmailed to keep the business under wraps for Vic.
Performances – We do have two big names in his film, first Richard Burton that doesn’t get to show the skill he could bring to a film, while a younger Ian McShane shows us that he could be set for a career in this sidekick gangster role. The rest of the cast are doing all they need to without being in anyway stand out through the film.
Story – The story follows a gangster that has the power over London, the police have been hunting him for years, but he always finds a way to get out of trouble. This time they get closer than ever before and could finally take down one of the biggest gangsters in London. When it comes to the gangster genre, we don’t really ever get much different when it comes to where the story goes, this one is based loosely on the Kray brother, but for some reason only one of the twins. It does feel like we have seen everything before, we don’t get drawn into support either side of the battle and end up feeling like it is just another gangster film.
Crime – The crime world we enter shows us just where the criminals operate and just where the police will need to turn to, in any hope of bringing him down.
Settings – The film is mostly set in London which see just how the criminals operate, where they can get away from crime.
Scene of the Movie – The opening scene as we see just how Vic can operate.
That Moment That Annoyed Me – The final shot.
Final Thoughts – This is a typical British gangster film that starts with an intense opening, only to become a drag as the film unfolds.
Overall: British Gangster 101.
Gareth von Kallenbach (980 KP) rated Looper (2012) in Movies
Aug 7, 2019
The criminal bosses of the future send a man named Abe (Jeff Bridges) 30 years into the past to serve the criminals of the future with a new type of hit man called a Looper. In the new film “Looper” Joseph Gordon-Levitt stars as Joe, a Looper who never lets morals get in the way of his job. He is happy to promptly dispatch anyone sent from the future without a second thought.
Joe is well paid for his work, and is happy to enjoy the drugs and women that come with his job. Yet Joe desires to leave it all one day and travel to France. For a Looper to be retired, he is forced to kill a future version of himself, and in doing so, gets a fantastic retirement payout and 30 years to live it up since that is how long it will take for time travel to be invented. Naturally an older version of yourself cannot be sent back to be killed by your younger self for at least 30 years. But the increase in retirements is a bit disconcerting for Joe.
Things change drastically for Joe when his older self (Bruce Willis), appears and manages to escape before he can be killed by his younger self. For a Looper to have his target escape is a serious infraction, and in no time, Joe finds himself not only hunting his older self, but also on the run from his former friends and allies who have made him both older and younger a priority.
At this point in the film, I was hooked, as my mind raced with twists, possibilities, and the promise of the film. Sadly the momentum grinds to a halt in the second half as the older Joe attempts to ally with his younger self to stop a future crime boss while he is a child. This quickly becomes a very blatant “Terminator” rip off as older Joe attempts to locate and kill children who may be the future crime lord while younger Joe is biding his time hiding from his former associates while protecting a young child and his mother from his older self.
It does not take much thought to see where this is going but sadly the remainder of the movie is underwhelming and disappointing as the film recycles scenarios that we have seen many times before in better movies. The second half lacks any real action and climactic finale to give the audience the well-deserved payoff they waited for.
Willis, Bridges, and Gordon-Levitt do solid work but seem to be going through the motions as they never really earn any sympathy from the audience. Much like last year’s “In Time”, “Looper” has a great premise that starts well and then fails to live up to its potential.
Lyndsey Gollogly (2893 KP) rated The Bone Season in Books
Apr 5, 2020
It is raining the day her life changes for ever. Attacked, drugged and kidnapped, Paige is transported to Oxford – a city kept secret for two hundred years, controlled by a powerful, otherworldly race. Paige is assigned to Warden, a Rephaite with mysterious motives. He is her master. Her trainer. Her natural enemy. But if Paige wants to regain her freedom she must allow herself to be nurtured in this prison where she is meant to die.
The Bone Season introduces a compelling heroine and also introduces an extraordinary young writer, with huge ambition and a teeming imagination. Samantha Shannon has created a bold new reality in this riveting debut.
This is a reread for me and I lived it more the second time round. I admire Samantha Shannon at such a young age to develop such an intricate fascinating world. It was so good to go back to the beginning of Paige's and wardens journey. These characters are so brilliant it's good to see the little things I missed the first time round. Now to wait patiently for Bone season 4 and my hardcover copy of The Mime order.

The Lufthansa Heist: Behind the Six-Million Dollar Cash Haul That Shook the World
Henry Hill and Daniel de Simone
Book
The inside story-from the organizer himself--of the largest unrecovered cash haul in history. This...
Sour: My Story: A Troubled Girl from a Broken Home. the Brixton Gang She Nearly Died for. the Baby She Fought to Live for.
Tracey Miller and Lucy Bannerman
Book
They call me Sour. The opposite of sweet. Shanking, stabbing, steaming, robbing, I did it all,...
The Happy Hack: A Memoir of Fleet Street in its Heyday
Book
Today, Fleet Street is just a term for the newspaper business. But not so long ago it was a real...
The Infiltrator: Undercover in the World of Drug Barons and Dirty Banks
Book
Robert Mazur spent five years undercover infiltrating the criminal hierarchy of Colombia's drug...
Devilfish: The Life & Times of a Poker Legend
Book
From prison cell to Las Vegas penthouse, Devilfish: The Life & Times of a Poker Legend is the...
Jail Bird: The Life and Crimes of an Essex Bad Girl
Tracy Mackness and Deborah Crewe
Book
Tracy Mackness has always had a flair for business - if not all of it legal. She started work as a...