Quiet please!

I can remember when librarians were strict. Strict. no-nonsense. Talk once and you got The Look, usually over a pair of steel-framed spectacles. Talk a second time and you were out, no second chances.

So, I was surprised by my trip to the local library today. First time in ages, I thought I'd take my laptop in and do some work using some of the reference books for research.

But the place was crowded and everybody seemed to be so noisy. The librarian was younger and better looking than I expect librarians to be, but the guy just didn't have the right stuff. No way he could do The Look - not a strict bone in his body.

I didn't get much work done. I just couldn't concentrate. I did, however, spend some time mulling over how strict an old-style librarian could have been. Clearly CP would have been out of the question in an environment where silence was at a premium, but after hours there'd have been nobody to hear the smack of implement on bare bottom, the squeals, the begging...

Book club: Beastly Behaviour

Welcome to my book club. Please sit down and help yourself to a piece of cake. As long-time readers will know our club doesn't bother with dull Booker prize shortlist novels, the sort of thing that thrills worthy lit chicks. We're about fiction that comes with the smack of firm discipline.

Which is why this month's club choice is 'Beastly Behaviour' by Aishling Morgan.

I adore the flair and wit of Aishling Morgan at her (or his?) best. Her writing is funny and clever - and arousing all at the same time. In fact, they deserve to be up there with a classic like 'Frank and I'.

And 'Beastly Behaviour' is among the best of them, although it gets a run for its money from one or two of the others. How can you not love a novel with a notes section that begins with the statement: "The late Victorian era must surely be regarded by all right-thinking persons as the golden age of female underwear." This right-thinker definitely agrees and is just as keen to celebrate the wonder of corsets, drawers and the rest. 

You don't have to have read Conan Doyle's 'The Hound of the Baskervilles' to cotton on to the fact that Ms Morgan borrows heavily from the Sherlock Holmes yarn for 'Beastly Behaviour'. There's the 'bleakness and melancholy' of Dartmoor, a big black hound, a convict on the loose and a detective by the name of Harland Wolff (who is accompanied by his old friend Dr Manston).

Their lady in distress is, however, not the typical Conan Doyle creation - she makes her first dancing in a Wild West whorehouse, where she's being offered for sale by the unscrupulous Nanna Bloss.

And, unlike a Holmes story, 'Beastly Behaviour' is bristling with sex and spanking. Along the way Genevieve, and her bottom, suffer plenty of indignities in a story that has lots of fiendishly inter-woven plot lines.It all moves along at a spanking pace (what else) to the sort of satisfying conclusion that a good AM always provides. In short, I'd say its a spanko treat.

Reflections on pinkness

Just a quick thought. Isn't it infuriating when you can't check out your recently-spanked behind in the mirror. As luck would have it Significant Other deemed it right that I should have a quick OTK hand-smacking this morning, which was an invigorating way to start the day.

Usually at the first available opportunity I like to then admire the red glow (or weals, marks, whatever) in one of the full-length mirrors that I have strategically placed around the house. But this morning the door bell rang just when that moment was presenting itself and I had to get my butt back into my jeans.

So nice when friends feel they can pop round - not. Anyway, once said friend had been hustled off I hurried to the bathroom for a viewing. And was maddened to see that what would have been a healthy rose pink 40 minutes earlier had all but faded to what a paint manufacturer would probably call 'blush white'.

Lost for words

Would a nicely brought-up 1940s Home Counties girl say 'shag'? As in, 'I could do with a damn good shag'. I don't think she would, but can't imagine the vocabulary she would use when talking about body parts and sex.

Forties fun

Which is proving a bit of a problem with my spanko novel in progress, currently enjoying the working title 'Beryl Gets Stuck In'. My lead  character Beryl and her best friend are full and frank when talking about their sexual experiences, but I'm struggling to give them the right words to be full and frank with.

Yes, they're nice Upper Middle Class 'gels', but when no-one else is around their way of talking would be no holds barred. Their lives are full of all sorts of sexual adventures, but the dialogue is proving to be a sticking point.
With 'A Month in the Country' finding sex slang from Victorian England was relatively easy and I really enjoyed putting some of the more colourful stuff into the mouths of my characters, but I've struggled to find a slang dictionary for military life in 1940s England.

The best I've come up with is stuff like 'khaki wacky' for a girl who likes soldiers, 'shake a leg' for hurry up and 'blow your wig' for get excited, but for more intimate stuff - nothing. Any suggestions?

Greatest spanking shoot ever?

Should be working this afternoon, but instead I found myself rummaging around in the archive of the excellent Mr Whacker. 

Mr W does a huge servcie to us all by keeping alive some classic stuff from the days before the internet. Hard times for we spankos, when looking up the s-word in a dictionary was about as exciting as life could get. But there was Janus and when it was good, it was very, very good indeed.

Maybe it was because images of spanking-related stuff were few and far between. Perhaps it's just that I was at an impressionable age. But some of that Janus stuff feels like it has been etched onto the inside of my eyelids.

And the Nicola and Priscilla shoot is, for me, THE Janus shoot. Beautiful pictures. Looking at them again the B&W ones are much livelier than the colour ones. Did they shoot one and then the other, or did the photographer just switch cameras along the way; either way the colour ones look rather staged and flat in comparison.

Sport - and the perfect rear end

Does cycling tone your bottom? I do some cycling, but from what I saw in the mirror this morning it isn't doing the trick. Not to self, go further, or up more hills, or both.

I heard somewhere, sometime, that the best sport for butt-toning is acutally fencing. Fighting with swords that is, not stringing barbed wire. I've not the evidence one way of another to judge one way or not.

There is a logic to it, all that leg work must tighten things up nicely. I'd say horse-riding is good, too. Non-riders think you just sit there and do nothing, but a good brisk English-style trot for five minutes or more is one hell of a work out.

But I'm now thinking that volleyball is the thing to go for, if this picture discovered by YEOWCH is anything to go by. Very impressive. If volleyball delivers like this then count me in.

More thoughts on the birch

Itching for take two on the birch discipline drama after yesterday's fiasco. At the next available opportunity I'm going to have another go, but with something other than willow - hazel maybe - and with more and bigger sticks.

Smaller birch, or bigger target?

Big and bushy is going to be the order of the day. I'm tempted to go out and find a birch tree and give it a pruning, but I'm not sure how I'd explain it if I bumped into a neighbour on the way home. Nice weather... yes, very springlike... these, oh - bit of interior design on a woodland theme... oh damn it, I'll come clean, I've been very, very naughty and am going to be thrashed until I squeal for mercy...

The birch - and branching out

It seemed like a good idea. Not a birch, more a birchette or a maybe a birchling. With Significant Other not at work and the kids out and about the opportunity was there for a bit of play.
Spring is already in the air here and I'd been out in the garden and what does a spanko's fancy turn to around growing things? Whippy switches, of course, and that leading character in any classic Victorian erotic yarn, Miss Birch.

So I looked out the secateurs and got snipping. Sadly no actual birch in our garden (note to head gardener - please rectify this oversight) so I thought I'd try willow instead.
And I wasn't in the mood for anything too Gothic, so I went for delicate little foot-long twigs.
Bound together with a couple of elastic bands it made the sort of pretty little rod that a Victorian nanny might have put to good use, rather than an avenging paterfamilias, but was something we could 'work' with.
I thought of adding a ribbon, but didn't want to waste precious time.What I had in mind was recreating a bit of 'A Week in the Country', or something rather like it. Not exactly this, but this kind of thing:

'You’re a wicked girl and this time I’ll make sure you get the lesson you so richly deserve, she says, bringing the birch down with all her strength. The twigs hiss through the air to lash across bumcheeks that flinch in anticipation of the impact. The rod whips back to shoulder height then falls again as the mistress settles into a steady, remorseless rhythm. After keeping her peace for the first dozen the maid lets out a squeal of distress at each of the punishing blows that follow.'

Didn't quite work out that way sadly. SO did indignant really well, while I protested my innocence and begged for mercy. But the birchette, birchling or whatever was a serious disappointment. Three of the twigs snapped on the first stroke and the whole thing promptly imploded.
And our moment imploded too - into giggling. Ruined the mood. Won't bother with willow next time.

Pure and simple

Am I a bit narrow in my outlook? Should I be more open to the new and the different? Lots of questions about the concept of the spanking purist since reading Spanking Pixie on the subject this morning - and I'm pretty certain that I am one, for better or worse.

Pixie asks for a definition of the spanking purist.  She says: "Is it one that only enjoys OTK hand spankings?  Some have told me that is the proper and ONLY way to deliver a spanking."  Then she goes on to ask if the definition could also take in implements and, if so, which ones.

Could a 'spanking' clip work if it only featured non-spank punishments? Soaping, cornertime, lines or whatever. 

Personally, I’m 'pure'. Nothing against the bondage and whipping lot, but they do nothing for me. The tingle time only arrives if the scenario - in realtime or inside-my-head time - is domestic (or perhaps scholastic) and it has to involve corporal punishment that fits logically with that scenario.

Implements yes, yes, yes. But domestic ones - hairbrush, slipper, cane. Leave the stock whip to India Jones.

Some non-spanking punishment is fun, but there has to be spanking. Without it, I'm being handed a burger without meat.

My 'purity' does worry me a bit when I'm writing though. When you write fiction you want to please readers, that's the point. So, does my blinkered narrowness exclude and disappoint some of my readers?

I've thought about it. I've read novels written for a spanko audience that have content that takes in other BDSM interests, but they don't work for me. I flick on a few pages and the flow of the story is, for me, spoiled.

So I've remained 'pure', as it were. I'm writing the stories that I'd like to read - hopefully there are lots of other purists out there.

Perhaps it's time for us students of spankology to do what mathematicians did and form sub-sets. Pure maths and applied maths. Pure Spank and Applied Spank, or whatever?

Kissing the hand

Should you kiss the hand that spanks? As an act of submission kissing the birchrod is a very powerful bit of symbolism in Victorian fiction, isn't it? Not sure what it's all about. Shakespeare uses it a couple of times in plays, but it's older than that. Presumably it's bound up with all that "don't bite the hand that feeds" stuff and seems to have quite a powerful hold over religious thinkers. I suppose the thinking was that the hand that feeds can also chastise.

Apparently the first in-print use of "don't bite the hand that feeds" was by the 18th Irish-born brainbox Edmund Burke - "having looked to government for bread, on the very first scarcity they will turn and bite the hand that fed them". But I would guess he was using a phrase that was in common usage. Didn't medieval lords have to kiss the monarch's ring?

For the spanko it probably makes sense to keep on the right side of your spanker. It's tough out their and you never know where your next "meal" is coming from, do you?

Points of view

I was having a chat about technique with a veteran fiction writer yesterday and he suggested - as an exercise - shifting the point of view in a scene to freshen up your writing. That is re-writing it from another character's POV to get a different sense of what's going on and how it fits in with the grander scheme of things.

Later I thought it's an exercise that seems perfect for our particular fiction niche. The POV of the spankee and of the spanker couldn't be more different could they? Or perhaps the POV of the proverbial fly on the wall...

Never too old?

I may be getting obessed with Google search terms, but don't they offer a window into other people's thoughts? Today's favourite is the phrase "too old to be spanked".

There's an interesting question, isn't there? I suspect the googler was picturing some lissom young thing eyeing the paddle and protesting: "But please, I'm too old to be spanked..."
My mind went a different. When do you become too old to be spanked? My first thought is never, ever. But then I picture myself in years to come, an Octogenarian resident at Shady Pines and think that perhaps a time does come when one should bow out gracefully...

When did it happen?

Was there a point in time that divided your life into two parts, spanko and pre-spanko? It's a question I've asked myself, but can't answer. It was so long ago for me that it's now more archaeology than history.

I really enjoyed reading Pandora Blake's beginner's guide post at Spanked, not silenced. Very nicely written. But the thing that most struck a chord with me was her opening paragraph. She says: "I was eight when I finally summoned up the courage to confide in my best friend. We’d shared all our secrets except one thing, and it felt like it had haunted me forever. Once I’d decided to do it, my heart wouldn’t stop pounding. I leaned over the lunch table and whispered, 'I want to be spanked.'"

At eight IT had been haunting her forever too. If I try to probe earliest memories I can remember pre-school games and made-up stories that involved elements of crime and punishment (I was the naughty one that had to be smacked).

One memory makes me quiver with embarrassment even now. I drew bright red, well-spanked bottoms on my sister's Barbie dolls with an indelible felt pen. She was horrified, my poor parents were mystified.

So, in the spirit of discovery I've added the poll on the right. When did you switch on to your inner spanko? Please add a vote or, better still, add a comment here.

The power of the boarding school myth

What is it about us Brits and the whole boarding school thing? Very few get to personally experience the rite of passage that is the paid-for, residential school - personally I went to a bog-standard council comprehensive.

But the boarding school thing is so much part of the culture that it fascinates my generation and, thanks to JK Rowling, seems to have its teeth into a new generation too. 

Somehow the boarding school thing is taking over Begsi, my spanko-novel in progress (working title Beryl Gets Stuck In). First I thought a flashback to Beryl's schooldays would be a good way to establish character, but now the school section has taken on a life of its own and threatens to take over.

Last night Beryl (Bee to her friends) had arrived at that classic 'waiting outside the head's study' moment:

Just next to the housemistress’ door stood an old pew from a redundant church. Bee sat on it back straight, knees clenched together and fingers picking nervously at the hem of her grey, pleated skirt.

“This is another fine mess you’ve got me into,” she hissed, trying to keep her voice at whisper level.

Cassie was pacing up and down, all nervous energy, but stopped when Bee spoke. “Doesn’t that make you the fat one and me the thin, dim one. Which one’s Laurel and which one’s Hardy?”

“Keep your bloody voice down, can’t you,” Bee said sharply.“And, you should be sitting down.”

“Who says?”

“It’s the rules, everybody knows,” said Bee. “She’ll expect you to be sitting. If you’re not, it’ll be worse for you – probably for both of us.”

I'm not sure I'm on the right track with this school stuff. I love the way writing fiction defies planning. You start off in one direction, but then imagination takes you off in another direction altogether.

But then if you wander off too far you end up writing scenes that, to use movie editor terminology, end up on the cutting room floor. I suppose I could give in to the flow and do a school story instead - why fight it?

Big knickers = spanko knickers

Probably going to give my age away here, but when I was at school big, navy blue knickers were what girls were expected to wear for outdoor sport. Crazy, the powers-that-be were obsessed with skirt length at all other times, but when it came to a game of netball running around in your pants was considered sensible. 

It was a state of affairs that was very popular with the boys. I love this picture, but I feel she's wearing a pair of navy blues that are a few sizes too small. Letting all that bottom peep out is very, very naughty.

(Dull) duvet day

I've got as terrible cold. Possibly flu. Head thumping, lots of sneezing and eyes streaming. So I decided that the day should be a duvet day. I'm self-employed, so there's no boss to phone - I can just take to my bed. But I'm not very good at doing nothing, so spent a little time dozing, tried to do some reading and am now fiddling around with the layout of this blog. 

I've also spent a lot of time browsing through a photo blog called Schund & Schmutz. It really is an amazing retro collection of the weird and the wonderful. Hours of fun. 

Here are just a few images picked at random that appealed to me for one reason or another. Apparently the title translate from the German as Trash & Dirt.

Spanking fantasy and gender mix

I'm in the dog house. SO says I'm not being fair and that's tough criticism from someone who reads 'The Guardian'. Unfair to MFophiles in this case.
Too much FF, some FM - but not a lot of MF. And looking back over the last couple of months it is a good point.
So guilty as charged. In my defence I think it's largely a question of aesthetics. As a viewer of spanko imagery I identify with the person being spanked, whether male or female; by way of an example, this National Lampoon spankee is really very cute, isn't she?
But my main attention in a photo or drawing is on the person doing the spanking, caning, birching, whatever. That's where my eye goes. Btw, is that Bill Bryson?

I want to find that person attractive, whatever their gender. And with so much of the MF imagery around the spanker just isn't very... fanciable.

You don't see many pipe smokers these days, but you do see old, fat, bald, bad beards and the like. That may do it for some people, but not for me.
I don't want to offend anyone by naming names, but there are plenty of examples out there. Look for gorgeous women and/or beautiful young men over the laps of guys who have seriously let themselves go to seed.

That must sound offensively age-ist. SO will probably give me another ticking off about elder-equality. But I'm not in the first flush of youth and as a result I don't put myself in front of a camera for the edification of others.But I will try harder. Honest.

PS And before you leave a comment about me going OTK for this oversight, SO doesn't operate that way. In my house misbehaviour earns less, not more...

Quote unquote

Or misquote in this case. Naughty Another Country - you've let me down, you've let the school down but most of all you've let yourself down...
When I started out on this blog it was a whim.Not a lot of thinking involved and when I got to the point where I had to come up with a title I put in the first thing that came into my head.
How about Another Country? Didn't somebody say the past is another country, they do things differently there? Or something of the sort. It seemed to fit my purposes - the past is another country in erotic fiction, they certainly do some different stuff there (click the 'read me' button on the right for a flavour.)
Then up popped a post a day or two ago from the visionary Underling and my certainty got a bit of a shaking. Namely the second excerpt of a story he called Another Country.
I had to check. With a few minutes googling I found what I thought was my source, the novel 'The Go-Between', by LP Hartley. It was published in the 1950s, but set in the years before WW1.
Turns out that Hartley said: "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there." Oops, so where did I get another country from?
Well first off, lots of other writers seem to have made the same error. The misquote "the past is another country" turns up so often that it has developed a life of its own.
It's possibly a result of two quotes being shunted together to make something that people like better than either original. Christopher Marlowe used the phrase "another country" in 'The Jew of Malta'
No excuses really though. I must try harder. I must try harder. I must try harder. I must try harder. I must try harder. I must try harder.I really must try harder...

Happiness is...

... a hot, red bottom! I feel like taking out an announcement in the local newspaper. After six long, spankless weeks I'm pleased to say that at around 1.10pm Greenwich Mean Time my wait has come to an end. Kids out, Significant Other off work and receptive to the signals. Bliss.

Dranatic reconstruction

Botany and bottomy

Pervertables, when you're in the mood they're everywhere, aren't they? I went into the garden centre yesterday to get pet food and Significant Other phoned while I was there.

Could I get hedge plants? There's a bit of a gap in the garden hedge and SO wants to put in more plants to fill it. I wonder around for a while and then decide to ask someone.

The only assistant in sight is young and male. I explain what I'm looking for and he says: "Oh, you mean whips." Did I blush like a giddy teen? I'm afraid I did.

It turns out that in the trade they call the little twigs with roots on 'whips' and sell them by the bundle. So it turns out that what I need is a couple of bundles of whips.

Of course, by then I was lost. We stood there while he explained why hawthorn might be better than hazel or hornbeam, but I couldn't concentrate.

So off I went with whatever he thought best (hawthorn - cheap, quick-growing, prickly enough to keep animals in or out), but I drove home with a different sort of botany - bottomy? - going on in my head.

I have some experience here. Hazel, flexible and knobbly. Willow, straight and slender and extra-stingy. Apple, good texture and very whippy. Haven't been able to try the classic hickory switch of American tradition, sadly. Can you grow it here in the UK - I suppose that's a question for the guy at the garden centre.

The Joy of Sox

Saturday morning chores to catch up on. The worst of which is doing the washing. When I was done I had, as ever, loads of odd socks. How does that happen? In a house of four adults (or three adults and a teen) how can we lose so many socks?

As I was messing around trying to match up stray socks I found myself thinking about the phrase "pull your socks up". When I was young I heard it all the time - it was used at home and at school, to me and to others, with tedious repetition. 

Usually it was delivered as an ultimatum. "You'd better pull your socks up or..." Or what? Or you'd get detention, lines, extra homework, whatever. From time to time at home it was: "You'd better pull your socks up or you'll feel my hand. Do you want that to happen?" I didn't at the time and the threat was never carried through. Ironically, since adulthood my answer to the question would be an emphatic "yes".

Somewhere over the years I'm sure I've been told that the origin of this once-popular British idiom had a spanko element. That bending over to pull up socks was an expected precursor to corporal punishment.

But I've just had a bit of a Google around and haven't been able to find anything that backs that story up. Perhaps it was just a bit of spanko wishful thinking.

Putting the 'knee' into OTK

The great thing about doing research on the web is the lateral-ness of it all. You start looking for the answer to question A, don't find it but off you go on some tangent and discover the answer to question Z. You didn't know you wanted an answer to question Z, but it's good to have it when you have.

So today I've discovered kiltgo. Bit puzzled by it at first (something Scottish maybe?) so I Googled and there it is, kiltgo - an acronym, short form for the phrase Knee I'd Like To Go Over.

The best expression of all things kiltgo is the image blog Kiltgo. I rather like the way that the elements of the perfect kiltgo image come together.

First off, you need good legs. No good if the owner of those legs is standing, she needs to be sitting. She should also be wearing stockings and, if possible, be adjusting her suspenders.

She must be elegant, well-dressed and - if possibly - have a direct, no-nonsense look in her eye.  In short, she has to look as though she would happily put you, the viewer of the image, over that knee and spank you like you've never been spanked before.

I think I'm a convert. I didn't know it, but I think I'm a kiltgoer

Old friend

Just a quick post as it's a busy day here. My first stop whenever I get online is always the brilliant All Things Spanking, a must-read for any citizen of Spankoland. You never know what you're going to find.

Today's little treat is this great image. Where did it come from originally? It seems to have been around for years and, for me, now seems like an old friend.

I'm not entirely sure what I like so much about it. That hairbrush? The long socks? The spanker's shoes and her tight, determined hold on the brush handle? I think it's the sense of anticipation.

She's been scolded and smacked and sent to the corner. Now she's about to get her real punishment. It's a picture that gives me goose bumps every time I come across it.

Wartime sacrifice - land girls and 'leathering'

My thoughts have been way back in the 1940s with the Women's Land Army today, while I've been trudging around doing mundane stuff thanks to two bits of reading matter.

Firstly, as reserach for my current fiction project of the moment I've been reading Angela Huth's 'Land Girls', a novel I wouldn't have touched under any other set of circumstances.

I was so gripped I had to take it with me to the supermarket so I could get through the last 10 pages in the cafe. The book was published in the early 1990s but you're more likely to have heard of the film, which starred the excellent Rachel Weisz.

It really is a touching story, without being sentimental, and is beautifully written. The way Angela Huth has managed to evoke the changing seasons on her imagined Dorset farm is particularly good.

Quite direct about sex too, which surprised me. Huth's Land Army girls have sex lives and, in the case of one character, Prue, are pretty direct about the need for a "shag" (North American readers note, that's getting laid - not the seabird of the same name). 

Huth's novel is not a lot like the spanko spy adventure story I'm trying to magic up. My heroine Beryl is selfless and shares Prue's interest in outdoor sex, but she's also going to get into lots of scrapes fighting Nazis.

And there will be lots of CP too, of course. Which is where the second bit of reading comes in, discovered tonight on DJ Black's top notch Voice in the Corner. 

DJ relates a snippet about a Land Army volunteer on a Norfolk farm where land girls had to become part of farm family life. Totally part of, including taking a leathering - a strapping - when it was necessary. Inspiring stuff...

The school uniform question

Got up early and did a bit of writing this morning. I've decided to add in a flashback scene to when my main character (Beryl) was on her last day at school because it helps establish her relationship with her best friend.
But I'm not sure. I'm a bit uncomfortable about school uniform in a work of spanko fiction. My characters are over 18 and consenting adults, but... That said, where would porn be without the adult schoolgirl?

Wrong?

I hated what I had to wear at school, but now uniform makes me feel all tingly. And if that's odd then I'm a member of a very big minority, aren't I?  The "naughty schoolgirl" is now a fancy dress standard, so the uniform thing has resonance with lots of (presumably) well-adjusted adults.
Zille at Fetish Fantasies was talking school uniform yesterday and exploring some of the issues around authenticity. She says: "It’s just one of those weird things: I feel emotionally nakeder in the longer skirt, with big ol regulation knickers under that!)."
Is an adult in a near-real school uniform more of an affront to all things decent and true than one in a cartoonishly tarty, fancy dress shop one? Do grown up women in shirt and tie encourage wrongun's to view real schoolgirls in an inappropriate way?
Last thought, should I start out on Beryl's story long after she's left school and joined the adult world? Is it wrong to put the classroom into a work of spanko fiction (a school scene that will, of course, have to include a little corporal punishment - it is spanko fiction after all). Or should I just go for it?
PS Someone emailed me to draw my attention to this. The marvellous Poppy apparently had to where a uniform hat - a boater no less. Unbelieveable, and she says it was only 20 years ago!

Sitting comfortably?

Not a problem in my experience. I've been very soundly punished often and sitting apres spank has never been an issue. 

Hot seat

Yes, there's heat, but it's no bar to using my behind to take my weight. Bit of bruising the following day from time to time, but again sitting it no problem. 
In fact, the discomfort that comes on sitting is a nice reminder of what's caused the issue in the first place. So, is it that the "you won't sit down when I've done with you" thing is just an empty threat, or is it that I'm being let off too lightly.

Wallis Simpson, dominatrix?

Well was she? Put the late Duchess of Windsor's name into Google along with the word 'dominatrix' and you'll pull up lots of comment for and against the dom theory. There's little real evidence and I guess we'll never know one way or another what went on when Mrs Simpson and the Prince of Wales got together.

Apparently Gore Vidal said the Prince had been "beaten up" by nannies and governesses and needed "a strong woman to bawl him out." Other articles are less direct, but the implication is there that it was Wallis who had - well, the whip hand in their relationship.

Whatever it was that the prince saw in the divorcee it had a strong hold over him. When it came to be a choice between 'that woman' and his role as king, Edward VIII went for the girl instead of the job.

Personally I find that rather touching - a real romance. He needed what she offered him and maybe it was a damned good spanking. If that's what he need then so be it.

The Madonna movie hasn't had good reviews and doesn't, as far as I know, throw any light on the question of Wallis as dominatrix. But I think I'll go and see - the costumes look fab.

Relaxation - and the birch

How do you read this picture? Maybe it's just that I'm suffering from debilitating spanklessness, but doesn't she look the most relaxed woman you've seen in a long time? Either about to be birched or in the process of being birched and she looks sublimely, ecstatcially relaxed. And I'm so jealous.

Since mid-December our home has been in locked down - and I've been in a state of frustration. The kids finished school and college and I knew that that was that until January 9. I had the day marked on the calendar in red.

Now it turns out that older child has dropped out of college and is hanging around the house doing 'job search'. I was livid about the decision to drop higher education, even though it should be only until October.

But in my heart of hearts I know that my anger the college decision is also about my own loss of privacy. It's so valuable and it has been taken from me.

You probably think that's a bit selfish. But I reckon spanklessness really screws you up over time if you're a genuine spankophile. It's a mental health issue that the NHS needs to look at.

If things go on here as they are I need a plan B. I may have to rent a remote holiday cottage for a weekend so that me and SO can discuss all these issues in the full and frank way that I think is so urgently required.

What the Dickens - too much costume?

Less than a couple of weeks into 2012 and I'm worried that I'm getting a bit weary of Dickens. I love Dickens, have read and re-read his novels. I look forward to adaptations and certainly feel that the anniversary of his death deserves recognition.
But the BBC seems to be in Dickens overdrive. Over Christmas 'Great Expectations' was, as expected, great. Well, actually only OK - it didn't feel at all authentic to me.
Not so sure about Radio 4's 'The Mumbai Chuzzlewits', which seemed a bit clunky. And now there's a new take on 'The Mystery of Edwin Drood', the unfinished novel he was working on when he died.
It'll be interesting to see how the Beeb have decided the story should end and to see Michael Sheen, who's never a disappointment. But for all that I'm not looking forward to it as much as I would usually be.

More Benson

Time ran out mid post yesterday, but I was meaning to include a couple more of Roger Benson's evocative drawings to make my point.

I really like the one above. The connection is a personal one. We had a sewing machine like that one when I was young and patterns, pins and fittings were very much part of the domestic scene.

Not sure what the relationship is here, but the dressmaker looks rather no-nonsense. I reckon if the girl fidgets too much she'll end up with a nice handprint somewhere between those knickers and the suspender.

If there's a mismatch between Benson's girls and the character I'm trying to create it's that they can seem a little too submissive; their eyes are often closed, or lowered. If there's fiestiness it's well hidden. 

On the other hand the matriarchs are certainly feisty - they're very strong women. I like to think they were once the ones on the disciplinary receiving end.Do the women at the table in this one know what it's like to be the spanked girl at the fireplace? I hope so.

Mind you, this one suggests no lack of spirit. This is a girl who knows what she wants and is prepared to take risks to get it. What happens in Benson World to a young lady indulging in this sort of necking? 

I've done a little research about the artist but it's hard to pin down who, when and where. His images were used with skill and imagination a few years ago by the creator of the spoof magazine Bared Affair that appeared on soc.sexuality.spanking newsgroup. I've always assumed that they were genuine products of the 1950/1960s. If they're not, they're very good at drawing the viewing into a constructed world. Anyone know?

Search engine puzzles

There's something weirdly fascinating about seeing other people's Google search terms. Most of the ones that bring people to this blog are pretty obvious, but a few have me scratching my head.

Like today's 'showing cane stripes changing room -candy'. I quite like the image that 'showing cane stripes changing room' conjures up - I'll show you mine if I can look at yours.

But where does the 'candy' come into it? I give you sweets to see your caned bum? Or maybe Candy is someone's name?

Roger Benson and picture perfection

The perfect Forties figure?  I've found it - in the great art work of Roger Benson.
I've managed to spend a bit of time this weekend on my story about Land Girl Beryl and have resolved the question of her figure. She has to have a Benson bottom.
I've looked for 1940s art, but not really been that inspired, but Benson's 1950s girls seem just right for my Beryl. What's 10 years here and there.
It's that mid-20th Century movie star ideal. The girls defy nature, but then a good fantasy shouldn't let reality tie it down, should it? They have long legs, narrow waists and marvellously full bottoms.
So, my character file now has a few Benson images in it to remind me of how Beryl looks. All I need now is a few free hours to get working on chapter two in earnest.

My word!

Further to my ramblings on the subject of Finnish yesterday, thanks to Chross for directing me to his excellent international dictionary. Now I know that läimäyttää is the Finnish word I was looking for (though some advice on the pronunciation of all those dots wouldn't go amiss).

And - better still - my Welsh has improved too.

Yes, I have a little Welsh - tipyn bach. Useful if I ever choose to trek through Patagonia. I did know that in Welsh smacio is to spanking what parcio is to parking, but I hadn't come across palfodi.

I'm now planning to spend some time running some of the words from Chross' page through the Google Image search. Here's an example, in went 'greadadh na masa' - which is Irish apparently - and out canme this.Interesting.

What's the Finnish for spanking?

The stats area of Blogger fascinates me. I've just been looking at the audience list and apparently I've had 12 visits from Finland this week.
Is that 12 visits from one Finn, or one from 12? Whatever, greetings Finland and welcome. I've always wanted to visit your country, all that snow and forest. And perfect lakes to skate on. Beautiful.
According to Google Translate it's 'selkäsauna' - the word for spanking that is. But I'm not convinced. When I do an image search for 'selkäsauna' back come pictures of wrestlers and footballers...?

The discipline of the strict deadline

Here's a bit of a conundrum for the freelance journalist who's also a bit spanky. You've been given a deadline and work on the article is limping along, but is a long way from getting finished. Talking to (presumably) non-spanko friends I know this inability to get stuck in is a common problem.

You make a coffee, you collect the mail, you talk to the cat, you empty the washing machine blah, blah. You do everything and anything but actually churn out the words. And all the time the deadline gets closer.

Eventually me and the vanilla writer part company. He or she pictures the stern, finger-wagging editor, keeps an eye on  the clock and gets it written.

Editorial feedback

I do something slightly different. I picture the stern, finger-wagging editor, lose sight of the clock and start imagining what could happen if I failed to deliver; the what could happen is, of course, all about being across the editor's knee or over the editor's desk for well-earned chastisement. 

Very difficult to concentrate. Anyway, better do some work, bye!

Kitchens and the spanko secret

This has really made my day.  I've just read about how Hermoine over at the excellent Hermoine's Heart has re-created her kitchen by putting all those naughty-but-nice cooking implments on show for all to see. You know, the innocent-looking spoons and spatulas that make your eyes water her applied to a bare behind.

My kitchen is halfway through a makeover, which has rather run out of steam. But now Heroine has breathed new life into the project - it's going to become Wales's new National Museum of Spanking Implements!
I've already got lots of good (pervertable) exhibits hidden away in kitchen cupboards and they can come out to go on show for visitors to admire. Then I can start touring kitchenware shops to add to the collection.
It's going to make the kitchen more fun to be in. I particularly like the idea that you could be drinking coffee with vanilla friends knowing that I'm sitting on a well-reddened bottom - and that the wooden spoon that did the reddening is hanging there for all to see.

Some confusion, surely?

From personal expereince I can say that the birch is a CP implement that has its problems, but I'm pretty sure something is wrong here. Madam, I think you're in danger of missing the point. Another little gem discovered at my current pash, Wickedknickers. At some time in the future I'm planning a 'Week in the Country II' to give my favourite heroine Flick new life and I think this pic could be the inspiration for a scene.

Drought, and necessary domestic discipline

The 'need' was so strong this morning. Significant Other went back to work today after a long Christmas/New Year break, leaving the house as 7.15am and leaving me awake and feeling... confused.

How long is it since I had the spanking I so richly deserve? Weeks. In fact, I can't remember the last time. And as the kids don't go back to school until next Tuesday I have zero chance of slaking my thirst any time soon.
Between you and me, it's now imperative that my bottom has punishment marks on it as soon as possible. Soon it is going to be a matter of life and death.

Rain day

What it's like for me, a raging thirst. Horny? I can think of something else. The spanking need on the other hand is a slow-burn thing that builds over time and becomes a constant distraction.

Can't concentrate, get ratty and short-tempered, forget important stuff, get bratty. Like thirst it is impossible to ignore. And I'm not sure that spending time posting here helps.
When the rain comes there better be plenty of it. Mind you, it does offer a great excuse for browsing around for an image like this one to illustrate just how much I want to get wet.

Today's reason to be cheerful

Big storm here, which meant the powerlines went down for half the day. No heat, no phone and no computer - so little progress on today's serious (and rather dull) magazine article.

Did someone mention a paddling?

But some progress has been made, which is good, and I've strictly rationed the naughty surfing. The good news is that my rationed surfing has turned up what is likely to be my new best friend. Or at least my new favourite photo blog - Wicked Knickers.

What a great name, but not too accurate as the knickers are mostly off - as they are as in this marvellous pic I've 'borrowed' to show you. A really, really good collection.