you’ve had an argument with the children
later you’ll have to go to work and bite
your tongue around your boss now you’re
in the bath reading the newspaper
there’s a big story on the front page a
chef in California on becoming convinced
that his wife was having an affair
dismembered her and boiled her body
parts for four days only a few bits of
her skull were left and it was from
these fragments that she was later
identified then you read that a couple
living near Luton claiming to offer
financial advice befriended and then
poisoned a sequence of elderly clients
another story informs you about a woman
in Spain who stabbed her neighbor 13
times for months the woman’s dog had
been barking during the day while she
was at work she was a dental hygienist
the neighbor complained repeatedly left
threatening notes had called the police
on multiple occasions and once kicked
the dog in the street from a distance it
hardly makes sense at all
that we should find these things a
source of pleasure such stories deal
with obviously horrible horrendous
things but strangely it’s reassuring and
even though we don’t relish saying so
enjoyable to hear about them we perhaps
worry that by taking pleasure in reading
of such stories we’re endorsing the
crimes themselves but the truth is we’re
not actively egging on criminals we’re
not go ahead these things happened on
the contrary it’s the very fact that
they’re so clearly wrong that generates
our moments of satisfaction one source
of our pleasure is that in many ways
these people look so normal the
Californian chef reminds you of a cheeky
boy in the classroom when you were a kid
the woman with a dog is like someone you
just saw at the supermarket we mostly
encounter the edited versions of other
people while we are continually exposed
to the weirder unedited version of
ourselves the unfair comparison means we
inevitably feel much stranger than we
really are there’s that odd sexual thing
that excites you or maybe you feel like
crying when you get stuck in traffic in
groups you have a strange sense that
everyone is normal except you at work
everyone feels the need to laugh at a
remark which in all honesty strikes you
as entirely unamusing this is where the
criminals we see in the media come in
they redraw the scale of stray
changeless by being exposed at 50 times
more strange they reposition our own
lonely peculiarities squarely back in
the realm of the humdrum and the average
it has absolutely never ever crossed
your mind to cook your partner in the
realm of poisoning and stabbing your
neighbors you are a snow-white
innocent this is surely one of the
hidden reasons why middle-aged men turn
in such numbers to reading books about
Adolf Hitler his catastrophic levels of
insane rage delusion destructiveness and
cruelty make pretty much everyone else
look quite lovely by comparison one may
have spent the evening drinking beer
make three vaguely insulting remarks and
omitted to brush one’s teeth before
coming to bed but by the standards of
bestest garden you are revealed as
really rather nice it’s not like you
haven’t had your share of challenges you
two have been deeply hurt by betrayal
you two have wished for easy money and
luxury possessions YouTube had sour
disputes with the neighbours but by
comparison you have reacted with grace
you felt furious suffered from envy and
had periods of money worries but you
never did what those guys from the media
did you absorbed the pain rather than
committed some horrific crime and now
that villainy is pleasing because it reveals your quiet moral heroism
later you’ll have to go to work and bite
your tongue around your boss now you’re
in the bath reading the newspaper
there’s a big story on the front page a
chef in California on becoming convinced
that his wife was having an affair
dismembered her and boiled her body
parts for four days only a few bits of
her skull were left and it was from
these fragments that she was later
identified then you read that a couple
living near Luton claiming to offer
financial advice befriended and then
poisoned a sequence of elderly clients
another story informs you about a woman
in Spain who stabbed her neighbor 13
times for months the woman’s dog had
been barking during the day while she
was at work she was a dental hygienist
the neighbor complained repeatedly left
threatening notes had called the police
on multiple occasions and once kicked
the dog in the street from a distance it
hardly makes sense at all
that we should find these things a
source of pleasure such stories deal
with obviously horrible horrendous
things but strangely it’s reassuring and
even though we don’t relish saying so
enjoyable to hear about them we perhaps
worry that by taking pleasure in reading
of such stories we’re endorsing the
crimes themselves but the truth is we’re
not actively egging on criminals we’re
not go ahead these things happened on
the contrary it’s the very fact that
they’re so clearly wrong that generates
our moments of satisfaction one source
of our pleasure is that in many ways
these people look so normal the
Californian chef reminds you of a cheeky
boy in the classroom when you were a kid
the woman with a dog is like someone you
just saw at the supermarket we mostly
encounter the edited versions of other
people while we are continually exposed
to the weirder unedited version of
ourselves the unfair comparison means we
inevitably feel much stranger than we
really are there’s that odd sexual thing
that excites you or maybe you feel like
crying when you get stuck in traffic in
groups you have a strange sense that
everyone is normal except you at work
everyone feels the need to laugh at a
remark which in all honesty strikes you
as entirely unamusing this is where the
criminals we see in the media come in
they redraw the scale of stray
changeless by being exposed at 50 times
more strange they reposition our own
lonely peculiarities squarely back in
the realm of the humdrum and the average
it has absolutely never ever crossed
your mind to cook your partner in the
realm of poisoning and stabbing your
neighbors you are a snow-white
innocent this is surely one of the
hidden reasons why middle-aged men turn
in such numbers to reading books about
Adolf Hitler his catastrophic levels of
insane rage delusion destructiveness and
cruelty make pretty much everyone else
look quite lovely by comparison one may
have spent the evening drinking beer
make three vaguely insulting remarks and
omitted to brush one’s teeth before
coming to bed but by the standards of
bestest garden you are revealed as
really rather nice it’s not like you
haven’t had your share of challenges you
two have been deeply hurt by betrayal
you two have wished for easy money and
luxury possessions YouTube had sour
disputes with the neighbours but by
comparison you have reacted with grace
you felt furious suffered from envy and
had periods of money worries but you
never did what those guys from the media
did you absorbed the pain rather than
committed some horrific crime and now
that villainy is pleasing because it reveals your quiet moral heroism
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