Some Interesting (I'm Hoping) Imagination Fodder

 

Institutional and Domestic Discipline: An Illustrated Collaboration 3 – Further Evolution

I have to rush out today – I am off to Eastbourne on the sunny Sussex coast where my mother is enjoying a few days in a guest house. I am going to be there later today and will probably (hopefully) spend the afternoon outside a bar at the end of Eastbourne pier writing in the sun - and it is blazingly sunny here in London at the moment, so I’m quite optimistic. This evening, I hope, will find me ensconced in the Eastbourne Wetherspoons pub; come and say hello if you are an Eastbourne type, appreciate a good ale and happen to be in the vicinity. Tomorrow I may visit Brighton or Hastings. I am taking my trusty bike and hope to tour around a bit up and down the south coast, visiting Wetherspoons branches and of course writing if and when inspired – I am taking my netbook computer with me. I next expect to be back home at my desk on Tuesday 8th June (next Tuesday) but WiFi internet connections willing, I may update the blog while on the move and hopefully I will still be able to view my emails – so don’t be shy, write today.

Talking off inspiration: if you remember the piece I posted recently regarding my collaboration with the Stateside computer artist, ‘Snooze’ and the evolution of a particular illustration I demonstrated as an example of the sort of thing we have been developing you will probably be interested with this, the latest incarnation of that art work - compare and contrast with the earlier renditions posted elsewhere. There are many more scenes we are working on – some far more complex and detailed - but it would spoil the fun to give any further inkling of these – you’ll just have to wait until the new book gets finished, or more specifically, the illustrated version of it.

In the present illustration the girl has just failed a written imposition set by the section psychiatrist – a most formidable, yet exceedingly clever - woman and has had her institutional pyjama bottoms taken of her in preparation for correction. The view through the door tells the viewer that this private little prison is in fact a tiny secure anteroom leading directly off of a more conventionally furnished consultation room - the regulation hospital bed provided for the inmate with its integral restraints is behind the view and so not in evidence. The white outer door beyond the bars both provides the psychiatrist’s office with the appearance one might expect, when closed, while also increasing the hapless girl’s isolation by removing from her the stimulation of the external view and providing for a high degree of soundproofing. The thick but supple leather belt carried, doubled-over, in the hospital sister’s hand, has a special relevance to the poor girl – it is something destined to make the up-coming correction all the more intolerable for the girl once the realisation sinks in! As always - all comments, ideas and what have you, will be gratefully received - bye for now!

Institutional and Domestic Discipline: An Illustrative Collaboration 2 - Evolution of an Image

Those of you who have been following this blog over the last few weeks will now that I'm now involved in a collaboration with a digital artist or illustrator the aim being to provide an illustrated version of the new volume (see Institutional and Domestic Discipline: An Illustrative Collaboration, Wednesday, 28 April 2010 - just click to view). I was just thinking the other day that some of you may be interested as to how things were progressing on the illustration front so I thought I would put together an example of the evolution of such an illustration. Of course you will understand that this particular piece of art work is presently very much a work in progress but it should be sufficient for you to get the idea without giving too much away as regards the storyline. In the context of the latter, one thing I can tell you - so as to set the scene without providing too much of a spoiler (I hope) is that one of our three hapless heroines, having now come under the personal care of an institution’s somewhat domineering section psychiatrist - a rather overbearing woman with questionable ethics and even more questionable aims - finds herself incarcerated in a claustrophobic, secure and isolated little cell-like anteroom leading directly off from the good doctor’s consultation room, dressed 24/7 in institutional green striped pyjamas, denied any human contact other than with the doctor herself and subject to stringent discipline and corporal punishment for the slightest fault.

Generally speaking I have been restricting myself to writing the text and generating ideas (although of course ideas flow both ways thus nurturing yet more branches and avenues to explore). In the development of this particular image, my collaborator has sent me the three-dimensional artwork shown in the first couple of examples but then I've taken the liberty of attempting to change the background colour to better fit the narrative - which to be honest I cocked up to some extent, obliging me to digitally repair the kneeling nurses hairdo (badly) - and added in the girl’s room’s barred security door and her nemesis, Matron, approaching outside in the doctor's consultation room, purely as an experiment to see how it might add atmosphere. In the first image the girl is of course naked and unblemished, free from any evidence of prior correction. In the second and third images she has on her institutional shapeless and baggy pyjama jacket and a healthy red blush is apparent colouring her behind.

The nurse came from an old scanned catalogue illustration and is supposed to represent the stern hospital matron placed in charge of the hapless young subject. Although in this version she is carrying a cane, in the storyline it is a folded leather belt that is put to use; but I didn't have a suitable strap / belt picture to hand and has always being full of enthusiasm and having little patience I was in a hurry to try the idea out. The final version, if it indeed it is decided to go ahead and include the bars and Matron approaching from outside, will have her carrying the leather belt or strap. The idea is that the nurses outside the girl's cell in the doctors consultation room (obviously) and as she is more distant she does not have to have such a high degree of 3D-ism. In the storyline the bars of course painted white but are not too sure how well this will appear in the final image and is something I have yet to experiment with.

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The image of the nurse is actually a horizontally-mirrored version of the original photograph for reasons of perspective and so I first of all shifted the nurses’ fob watch in the original to her right hand side so that it would actually appear on her left in the final shot, as it should. I was especially keen to allow her belt buckle, trim around the collar and fob watch to be seen as I think these details all add to the sense of authority I intended her image to engender. In the final version, if used as a concept a freshly constructed nurse image will be used

The bars themselves came from the original version of those that I used on the book covers of INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1 and INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2 and I used an image shearing facility on a Linux-based image processing application called ‘The Gimp’ called to simply pull them into shape to fit the perspective of the 3-D image as judged by eye (there is also a 'perspective' tool available on ‘The Gimp’ but that doesn't seem to work so well - at least not in my hands, LOL).

I have since fed back the results of my manipulation to my collaborator who has now sent me a version re-coloured to suit the narrative but minus the mess that I made of it. This latter modification is of course based on the original art work, so next one or the other of us will add in the extra detail as in my experimental changes, such as the external view and matron outside (always assuming of course that we decide to continue down that route). Any opinions / comments will as always be gratefully received. With external nurse / bars or without? Which should it be - that sort of thing. One thing that I should point out - and that I have pointed out before - is that the institutional aspect is balanced by the domestic discipline aspect in the final work and even a little ecclesiastical discipline: It turns out that one of my characters may - or may not (depending on who you believe - and even the subject herself is uncertain as to how much is memory how much is delusion) have suffered expiation (both sexual and otherwise )and physical chastisement under the guise of ecclesiastical care in a church-run home for wayward young women. This of course came to light during the events unfolding in INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2 but in the new volume we learn more of her trials and tribulations and perhaps discover the truth.

News, Views and Prison-Bar Blues

Do you remember the exciting news I said I was going to share with you? Well, last week I signed an agreement with an online electronic publisher which should result in INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1 becoming available in the various ebook formats, including Kindle, iphone, ipad and the rest! In addition it is likely to become more widely distributed and therefore more visible to search engines and thus to potential readers. Regular readers of this blog will be all too familiar with my bemoaning my poor choice of title which has led to the book's existence being well nigh impervious to disclosure by way of the usual array of spanking / discipline / uniform fetish / clinical-institutional bondage and restraint - type keywords. It's far too soon to say any more, but I'll keep you posted. If all goes well, both INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2 and the new volume, when I finally get the thing finished, may well follow suite - of course depending on their suitability as judged by the publisher. As for the new volume: it's been gradually evolving from a quick, short piece - designed both to utilise previously written material that wasn't finished in time for inclusion in the first two volumes and to fill in the gaps in the story arc so as to pave the way for volume 3 – to masterwork of near epic proportions. As for the latest on volume 2: Thanks to a little help from Lulu (at last) it has now been assigned one of my block of ten ISBNs and so later today I shall be submitting it for inclusion in Google's Book Search scheme, including all the modifications I have made to it with the aim of so called ‘search engine optimisation. One proviso is that I’ll am apparently going to have to modify the back cover to include the ISBN. If I am going to do that I may take the opportunity to change the background colour to match that of the front cover and spine . I'll see how much work it is going to entail offset against what is a minor cosmetic advantage at best – it all depends on whether I still have the background available as a separate layer.

Now for some other news: I have just added a link to a guy called Doug Adams’ home page in the ‘Useful Resources’ list (see right hand side bar or click on ‘Doug Adams’ home page’, above highlighted in blue – I hope ). Look in the left hand side bar in his index page for a list of content, including articles on all sorts of fetish-related subjects, many of which have relevance - either directly or indirectly – to my present project or at least are potentially inspirational. Scroll to the bottom and you will also find a free image gallery, which again I have found inspirational.

I have also added two new blogs I came across just now while searching for more inspiration for the new volume to the blog list (situated in the right hand side bar, if you're new here). Schoolgirl Spanking Stories does exactly what it says on the tin – click on blog name to visit or check side bar.

The second, Pandora Blake's blog, is written by, and deals with, the star of many short films revolving around our favourite genre – which is my excuse to present a little promo film (moving content no less!) from those master's of the Institutional / prison punishment scene – Bars and Stripes! (See window immediately above, click on arrow to play) I have mentioned their work previously - well before my recent signing to their affiliate program – as they are one of only a few purveyors of such material that regularly feature my all time favourite scenario: The smartly uniformed nurse, ward sister or matron – all tight-belted blue polyester, cambric or cotton and starched white apron - wielding a cane or strap across the defenceless chubby backside of some young female incorrigible miscreant against the backdrop of a secure institution. Enough already – it's getting all too exciting…Bye for now – I have to go close the curtains!

Institutional and Domestic Discipline: An Illustrative Collaboration

Hands up who would like to see an illustrated version of the new volume when it appears. Over the last couple weeks or so I have been developing a collaborative project with a guy from across the pond who works with 3-D rendering - and who is on a similar wavelength, to boot - with an eye to doing just that. Actually you have met him and his work before in the blog entry dated the 17th April 2010 entitled Another Day, Another Barred Window (click to view) under the name of ‘Snoozz’. It's still early days in the creative process yet, but it's an exciting concept I'm sure you will agree - even so I thought it would be interesting to garner opinion; so let me know what you think! It is ‘Snoozz’ we have to thank for today's pictorial offering (above left). Although representing just one scene, in what is a fairly complex storyline, I feel that it really embodies that all-important sense of oppression and the feeling that here is a buried, private and secluded little world outside the reach of conventional society and beyond the control of meddling ethics committees, busybody social workers and the rest. Quite wonderful! To see more of this guy's work click here.

While on the subject of illustration: the pic on the bottom right is something I pinched from a site I am affiliated to (see bottom of page) and that I think illustrates beautifully a scene I've been working on for the new volume which harks back to an earlier period when one of our characters, prior to being brought to the clinic, had first gone to live with her aunt - a strict, overbearing ex psychiatric nurse who begins to dominate her from day one.

Actually, now that I come to think about it; an opinion poll is something I have yet to do. I've never really been that excited about the idea, simply because there have been so many others carried out in the past on the various other websites, blogs and forums etc that populate the spanking world. Nevertheless it would be interesting to know, for example, which implements my readership prefer to imagine used, what types of scenario are favoured or which fetishes people think might work within the story arc of the series or would like to see included in some manner. At the end of the day this blog has never been entirely about spanking nor is it purely about BDSM in the conventional sense. With that in mind, perhaps a poll or questionnaire could work, if it were presented in a new non-stereotypical way and the questions were structured in such a way as to reflect both the spirit of the books and gain inspiration while stimulating the imagination of the participants.

Towards the end of last week I managed to acquire a chest infection - well to make matters worse while away this past weekend it developed into some sort of full-blown chest complaint, making it difficult to breathe. I have asthma and to be honest it is quite common for a simple cold to develop into a breathing problem - sometimes a sneeze will set off on asthma attack; which is fine if I have an inhaler to hand, which quickly sorts it out. On other occasions - and this looks to be one of them - a secondary infection sets in a whole thing becomes problematic until I can get my hands on some antibiotics. Those of you who regularly followed my ramblings will already know that I rely to a great extent on voice recognition software to dictate my work into the computer as I am as dyslexic as hell, easily distracted and incredibly slow at typing (not in any particular order of importance). Well, in addition to making me nauseous, I'm sure you can imagine how fits of uncontrollable coughing not to mention a blocked nose and wheezing can play havoc with voice dictation software - all sorts of gobbledygook results unless I quickly turn off microphone. To make matters worse the wheezing and blocked nose, together, seem to have affected the character of my voice so that more than ever this perverse little software package seems to be deliberately working against me - and I've often thought that it deliberately misunderstands me in any case… this computer hates me, I am sure of it! Bye for now!

Some Pyjama Musings, a New Album & More Paula Meadows Artworks Added

Hi folks! It's a wonderfully sunny day here in London and despite feeling a little worse for wear, having spent the majority of yesterday afternoon and evening in the pub, nevertheless I am in high spirits. At the weekend I attended an antiques fair in Bushy, a little town in Hertfordshire just to the north-west of London where of all things I purchased an old Ponting's holiday camp brochure dating from 1975, partly for its nostalgia value but also with one eye to the provision of blog content. I had intended to put aside a little time today to get on with some scanning in any case and the fruit of my labours as regards the aforementioned purchase can be viewed in a PicassaWeb album that I have created specifically for it under the general banner of Women's Nylon Overalls and Uniforms Catalogue Scans and imaginatively entitled 'Pontins Girls'. To be truthful some of the pictures were rather small and could do with enhancing but are interesting nevertheless, if nothing else than for the observation of how surprisingly like nurses uniforms some of the restaurant-staff serving uniforms are. There are couple of actual nurses pictured as well, one of which - a woman dressed in what appears to be a navy-blue hospital sister's uniform - quite readily evokes the image I have in my mind of the woman under whose cane the delectably chubby bottoms of young Lavinia and Susan dance in my first two volumes. While it was at it, I also added 14 more pictures to the 'Art by Lynn Paula Russell' (Paula Meadows, as was) album, listed under 'Spanking Artwork Albums'. I can't guarantee that there are no duplicates but I have done my best to check. Both of these albums may be found under the relevant headings in the right-hand sidebar.

The other reason I'm in such a good mood today is that the writing of the new volume has been coming along swimmingly now that I am finally free of niggling computer problems (touch wood!). Of course new ideas and plot directions necessarily leads to further research, which in itself often turns up little gems of inspiration that in turn can redirects and further inform the story arc.

One of the pieces I been working on recently revolves around a girl undergoing a series of interviews involving batteries of psychological tests and assessments and in-depth questioning that more rightly might be described as interrogation. No longer a guest of the institution of her own volition, she finds the goalposts have now moved somewhat. She can no longer harbour any hope of being able to just walk away from the place, nor can she necessarily rely on those on the outside that know of her whereabouts intervening, few that they might be - indeed it seems that one or more parties have a vested interest in her remaining just where she is. And despite having now become officially, on paper at least, an actual in-patient rather than a volunteer behavioural research candidate, she is still very much embedded in the experiment, living eating and sleeping in the narrow confines of a self-contained sealed off section of the behavioural research unit initially set up on grounds approximating to a rather strict old-fashioned girl’s boarding school but having now morphed into something closer to a Victorian reformatory.

Obviously the girl realises that the only person that is going to get her out is herself and that the only way she can achieve that is ironically by going along docilely with the regime. She knows that her ‘case’ will be reviewed and that at that time she will have the opportunity to convince a panel of independent doctors of her suitability for release back into society. The trouble is, she knows too that her ‘case’ is not scheduled for review for nearly two years and that even then, should the reports received by the panel in the meantime not warrant it, she might not be invited to physically attend her own hearing. If she should give the staff sufficient cause to write ill of her, she could easily find her review date put off for another year or even longer - and even then she might not get the chance to speak for herself, not unless medical reports regarding her psychological state warranted it.

She also knows she has only herself to blame: Presented with what apparently was the perfect opportunity to blow the whistle, be free of the place and, she thought, potentially claim substantial damages in recompense for her ill treatment she had been naïve enough to blurt out the whole story. Only later did it occur to her how absurd her allegations would appear, out of context and in the absence of concrete evidence - especially when contradicted by a renown and well respected authority. It was hardly surprising that a swift provisional diagnosis of delusion was agreed upon. After all, who would take seriously a tale of a behavioural research unit buried deep within the bowels of a world renown private sanatorium’s secure psychiatric wing wherein young women were routinely incarcerated in prison-like cells and made to work in a sweatshop or - even more absurdly, surely – kept in an environment approximating to the strictest of convent boarding schools, subject corporal punishment and dressed in the most restrictive, juvenile, anachronistic and humiliating school uniform one could imagine?

Now she has to be careful; she is well aware that her every move is being scrutinised in the tiniest detail and report cards duly made out. If she rebels, then that could be held up as evidence of ‘behavioural disturbance’ – not to mention earning her a good few strokes of the matron’s supple cane across her bared bottom. If she submits, on the other hand, she risks becoming as subjugated and institutionalised as the other girls around her, the other ‘long-term subjects’ that she has in the past secretly despised for their ‘weakness’. Therein lays her quandary. But there is worse, in that the section psychiatrist seems to have taken it on her self to thoroughly investigate the girl’s case to her own satisfaction. The woman seems anything but impartial, digging deep into the girl’s background, and apparently determined to extract any and every morsel that might conceivably be evident of the diagnosis. Our tender heroine is summoned to the doctor’s office each and every day; the tedium of the schoolroom swapped for anything from one to four hours for the equally tedious process of incessant and repetitive questioning and probing, much of it on a highly personal level. Given the potential consequences the girl is of course guarded, but halve-truths and fabrications are daily being teased from the rest and absolute refusal to cooperate is not an option - the woman keeps a supple length of rattan by her desk and has no qualms about employing it.

So now we get to the point that has had me hunting about the ‘web’. It seems to me that the good doctor might consider the girl being removed from and returned to the schoolroom each day as being too disruptive. There is a small windowless anteroom, little more than a large walk-in cupboard, leading directly off from her office and equipped with a hospital bed and the idea occurs that she might remove the girl from the usual day-to-day hub-bub of the unit for the foreseeable future, at least until she is satisfied with the outcome. That room and the doctor’s office is going to be the limit of the girl’s universe from now on and given that she is not going to be mixing with the other ‘schoolroom section’ inmates I thought it likely that the school uniform would for the time being no longer be a part of her wardrobe. But how should she be attired? The thought struck me that pyjamas could be the solution, backed up on occasion by the addition of a straight jacket. What could be more apt or make the girl feel more like a mental patient than baggy, ill-fitting institutional flanelete pyjamas in a wide green and white striped pattern. In this scenario I imagine her as becoming the doctor’s own private prisoner, a sort of pet project that the woman can work on at her own convenience. I can envisage the girl being led in front of the psychiatrist’s desk, obliged to hold up her pyjama bottoms with her hands to prevent their slipping down, her wrists linked by cuffs and her ankles hobbled in restraints – how demoralising!

With all that in mind I have been looking around for a little ‘girl-spanked-in-pyjamas’ type inspiration. And as always, Google came up trumps a s witnessed by this little collection and a few links that I will share with you shortly.

Before I go I have to say how surprised – and delighted - I have been by the amount of response generated by my last posting. While quite obviously (well at least I think it obvious) this blog has little to do with cross-dressing and TG nevertheless I am sure that the link to Fictionmania kindly provided by ‘Anonymous’ (he gets every where, this ‘Anonymous’ chap) will be of interest to many, thus I have added it to the ‘Useful Resources’ listing in the right-hand sidebar. Another (I assume) Mr ‘Anonymous’ seemed able to read my mind when, referring to the gym suit idea, he suggested a lining of satin and mentioned PVC – I had just written a bare-bones description involving satin-lined serge with an integral rubber layer. I am going to be taking his advice, though, and investigate the possibilities inherent in 1960s and 70s designs before committing myself to one design or another.

The Demise of a Well Loved Machine?

What a crap day it has been so far today. Towards the end of last week I had reason again to visit 'the coast', which, together with gym sessions and driving lessons (car driving – yes, at my age I have yet to learn to drive), pretty much swallowed up my time. This morning, though, for the first time in ages I awoke at home (my home) – and with the day ahead totally free. Not only that but I both awoke at a reasonable time and fired-up with a burning enthusiasm to get on with writing - You may remember that recently I told you how I had come up with some interesting ideas, well now they have had time to ferment! So, picture the scene; I am sitting in front of my dual-screen work setup, microphone poised at my lips (I use voice recognition and dictation) and hands quivering in anticipation hovering over the key board. The computer boots up (takes just a few seconds – it uses two 10,000 RPM Raptors configured in RAID zero, for the technically-minded) and I duly log on to my account. Google pops up, my work folder opens, the voice recognition stuff loads and I lean back with my mug of tea, reading through my emails – all is as expected, all is right with the world and I am raring to go. But what is this? What is this strangely-pungent smell, somewhere between toilet disinfectant and singed hair? Having checked my barnet (Barnet fair – hair, get it?) and found it free of evidence of indigenous slash and burn agricultural activity and having felt an ominous tinge of familiarity tickling the back of my mind, I lean forward, tentatively sniffing at the keyboard, mouse and their environs...Yes...My suspicions are confirmed. The worrying fragrance is stronger here – actually it is becoming stronger throughout the room, almost eye-watering in fact – but it is definitely stronger here. Now that I come to think about it, I know that smell from somewhere – from the days I worked as an electronic engineer – it is the odor of stressed-out electronic componentry giving up the ghost...But this is a veritable funeral pyre!...And it is coming from the rear of the computer desk – I can see the smoke now!!! I reach for the off button but the reaper beats me to it – the screens go blank, the fans fall silent, the hard drives run down and brain-death is declared. For a few dumbfounded moments there is silence, then....Bang!!! A loud metallic concussion issues from the computer's backside – these things can happen to us all at the moment of our demise I understand.

To cut a long story short; upon undertaking the necessary postmortem examination I found encouragement in the observation that the odor of decay was strongest around the region of the heart (power supply). Upon opening up said organ I was further gladdened to find evidence of blackening and a splattering of the contents of one of the electrolytic capacitors. This is not to say that the patient is retrievable of course; the chances of resurrection depend a lot upon the strength of its immune system, ie whether or not the motherboard's over-voltage, chip set overheating, CPU over-temperature detection and shutdown measures stepped in fast enough. In the absence of visual evidence, the only way to find out for sure is by substitution. Accordingly I have just purchased what I believe to be a correctly tissue-matched transplant replacement.

Despite this drawback, I am determined not to let my enthusiasm become too dampened. To that end I have decided to do a little work on my notebook machine in a local coffee bar before returning, so that at least I have got something done toward getting the new volume out. Meanwhile the project I have been trying to get underway to scan and share my spanking / discipline magazine and book collection (and other related collections) has once again been delayed as has anything else requiring scanning / printing. To top it all, I have quite a lot of stuff on the main machine that is not backed up (and that is despite my forever harking on to anybody within earshot of the need to always back things up). Saying that, all work to do with my books has been backed up on DVDs or resides on more than one machine, other than the work I recently did on the cover art for the new book, but that was only tentatively trying out a few ideas and amounted to just a couple of hours work at most. There is quite a lot of downloaded research, source materials and pictures on the hard drives, though, that has not been backed up. As the drives are RAID zero and the data shared between them, this means that if the motherboard is indeed kaput, then retrieving all that stuff will have to wait for me to put together what amounts to a new machine. Meanwhile, for the chap who requested pictures of women carrying or using the tawse and for all those that appreciate the image of the strict nurse / governess figure, here are a few pics originating from our sponsors (ho, ho!) (see bottom of page or right sidebar) Sorry they are so small but they are just thumbnails that I have pinched off of one of their email newsletters. Ordinarily I would re-size / enhance them for your further delectation, but...Well you know the problem...Actually the last one is from elsewhere (though I'm not so sure from exactly where - it was sent to me) and not so small - think of it as a bonus. Cheers and beers!

Emails, Latex, Starched Collars, Restriction and Enforced Tattooing

My apologies to all those who have emailed me over the last week or so and have yet to receive a reply. I have been out of action for one reason or another and on and off for quite a while now and in the meantime the incoming e-mail tends to build up. The new arrivals eventually push earlier messages further and further down the pile until they disappear off the bottom of the page and go out of focus - then they are all too easily overlooked. I am now working my way through my outstanding email stack and in so doing I thought I might use one or two to illustrate points regarding the INSTITUTIONALISED story arc and the influences that have impacted upon it thus far. As always I'll keep everything anonymous unless the writer concerned requests acknowledgement.

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Here is one that unfortunately it has taken me seven days to reply to - seven days languishing in my mailbox is unforgivable, sorry old chap - and my reply. The pictures are from a set that somebody recently sent me anonymously, for which my heart-felt thanks, and which deliciously illustrate - in an in-between-the-lines sort of way - the spirit of part of the upcoming new volume. There is piquant ambiguity there; of which, for our purposes, one might wish to choose the darker interpretation - is the girl truly as content as she seems... or has she just come to think of herself as content?..or been expertly led into a mindset of dominated acceptance? hmmm! I know not the origin of these pics so I can only hope I am not treading on any one's toes, copyright speaking, here - if so I will of course remove them at once.

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“I am really enjoying the descriptions of the uniforms, especially Lady Madison’s “maid” and the girl in the wheelchair, 24C, I’m not that keen on latex but the idea of all white, including the Nurses’ uniforms is great, adding the Nun style wimple adds to the effect. The idea of tattooing the individual “patients” number on their buttocks is inspirational, just a couple of questions though, why get the girls to write their names when consenting, wouldn’t it have been better to have them sign in a previous chapter that they would in the future as eg 23C and then any consent form would only use their number, or was the intention to introduce a little confusion when they used their previous name. Also what would happen if the patient changes from the school to the cells, eg 30S / 30C and then back again, would she have been tattooed?”

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I have to say that latex is only on the peripheral my interests, my interests really lie more with the use of corporal punishment and imposition of strict discipline and school uniforms and the like on young ladies in their late teens or early twenties. As I have said before; my formative reading matter tended to be the likes of Richard Manton and Victor Bruno, and if you know the works of these authors you'll get a feeling for where I'm coming from. As I read around more over the years and discovered other people's interests, the discomfiture inherent in the idea of the heroine having to contend with snug-fitting school knickers, say, fitted with a latex lining seemed to lend itself to developing that all-important sense of restriction. I saw the use of latex under such circumstances much in the same vein as crisply starched school blouses having high, tight starched collars, a girl's hair being tightly plaited and pinned coiled to either side of her head or cut to a short boyish, collar length, style, restrictive corsetry incorporating a stiffened backboard so as to ensure good deportment at the school desk, heavy gabardine rain-capes worn on the warmest of days or toe-crushing shoes cunningly designed to hobble the wearer and so ensure a suitably submissive dainty, girlish gait. You have to realise that when I set out to write these books I also set out to incorporate as many disparate fetishes that seemed to fit with the storyline - not necessarily my own interests in all cases.

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The level of discipline and restriction that many letter writer's seemed to advocate in the correspondence pages of Janus, Blushes, Whispers and some other magazines published in the 1980s, the period when I was mostly reading them and tend to hark back to, never really rung true with me in the context within which the correspondents would develop their ideas - such regimes as were often advocated seemed unlikely, if not downright distasteful to the point of being a turnoff, in the context of the parental home or in any sort of conventional and publicly scrutinised school system. Where on occasion some sort of promise of plausibility did seem to arise it was to be found more often than not broached in connection with the subject of ' admission procedures’ wherein the existence of various small, secure and privately funded institutions were sometimes posited - apparently run as much for the amusement of the rich patrons that fund it as to benefit the reformation or education of the inmates.

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One writer talked about an establishment wherein a young lady might be confined and where she might be visited from time to time by the man or woman responsible for her incarceration. Some spoke of reformatory schools and short-sharp-shock regimes, lasting two to three months perhaps. Others, excitingly in my opinion, spoke of minimum periods above a year while still others used that wonderful term 'indefinite'. Then one would sometimes come across the idea of a young lady cloistered behind the high walls of her ancestral home, kept from her inheritance by a cruel guardian or stepparent and under a regime of some sort of scholastic discipline whether mediated by a stern governess, dour children's nanny or strict nursery nurse. Influenced by all of the above and having read about the church run, so-called, Madeleine laundries and the ease with which a young woman could find herself committed to such a place - or indeed, in the Victorian period, to the local mental asylum - merely for having refused the advances of the local squire, as well as the unethical psychological experiments carried out in the 1930s through to the 1960s, I chose to invoke a combination of these ideas, centring around a privately funded research unit embedded within a secure psychiatric hospital. As you know it is basically the story of a girl who, having been manipulated into becoming a voluntary research subject for a short period, finds herself increasingly less able to extract herself from the situation to find herself in.

The idea of having the girls sign an earlier legal document stating that from that point forth, while within the institution, their assigned patient number would stand for their given name in all further waivers is a nice one. The reason I opted to have the girls sign the documentation, giving the hospital the right to tattoo them, using their full names, was to impress upon them the legality of their situation and to further impress upon them the futility of attempting to stand against the reform--school / boarding-school regime they are being kept under. It is for similar reasons that the documentation itself is dictated to the girls and has to be rendered in their own handwriting while sitting at their school desks. Obviously, pre-printed sheaves of papers, merely requiring the subject place her signature at the relevant points, could have been handed out, but that would have been missing out on a wonderful opportunity to further apply psychological pressure on them - remember that during the dictation process, any one girl making a mistake or failing to achieve sufficient copperplate-neatness caused the group as a whole to have to start again from scratch. Recall also that the documentation was worded so as to be not so much a permission given to the hospital as it was a request from the girl concerned that the hospital authorities should permanently tattooed each with her assigned patient number. You have hit the nail on the head when you posit the intention of introducing a little confusion when the girls are forced to use their previous names - a girl finding herself automatically going to use her patient number despite herself, perhaps finding her given name appearing almost strange to her, will surely be mindful of the effect that her time in the unit as already had upon her.

As to what would happen as regards the tattoo if the patient was to be changed from the 'schoolroom' regime to the ' prison' or ' workhouse' regimes - there is a good reason why this would not be of too much concern but to elucidate further would be to give too much away.

A Writing Update, Asylum Nurse Slippering, a New Blog and a Right Old Cock-up

I wonder how many of you have ever produced a piece of work and then realised some days later that somehow you had closed down the document and forgotten to save it. Well, that is presumably exactly what has happened to me recently. I wrote a nice piece of dialogue for the new volume on Friday, I can remember practically every part word for word, well almost, (which is a lucky thing, considering - as it looks as if I shall have to rewrite it from scratch). Yesterday, while out and about with my portable machine, I settled down in a friendly coffee bar intending to continue where I had left off; only finding myself unable to find any trace whatsoever of what I'd previously written. I checked deleted files, files that I had e-mailed to myself as backup, files on both the memory sticks that I carry with me and even the main story file itself, in case I had already inserted the text - all to no avail. For while it almost seemed as if I was going out of my head - a possibility if it was not for the fact that I can remember so distinctly what I wrote. As is the last few days of the Grand Wetherspoon's beer Festival I promise myself a couple of days of partaking of a few ales and meeting up with one or two old chums but now it looks as if I shall have to park myself up in one of their fine establishments with my computer and rewrite the piece while it is still fresh in my memory and while I still have the enthusiasm to write the continuation piece that I had planned to work on yesterday.

The whole thing revolves around one of our young heroines arriving with her escort at a therapist’s office in the West End of London, having been persuaded, some time previously, of the necessity of seeking professional support and having had to date attended many such appointments. More specifically, the part that I had planned to work on yesterday - and that I hope to get my teeth into today - simply deals with the doctor's receptionist taking the girl’s outerwear from her at a coat stand in the waiting room and with the girls reluctance to be helped off with her outdoor things, despite the fiery summer's day outside and the waiting room being somewhat over-warm as a consequence. It doesn't sound much but it requires quite a lot of detailed descriptive work - and work that I relish to tell the truth, dealing as it does with the rationale behind an obviously sweltering and pink faced late teen girl and a heavy gabardine garment worn on one of the hottest days, driest, days of the year. But before I can allow myself that little imaginary excursion I have to deal with the more mundane workaday dialogue that leads up to that point - the stuff that I wrote on Friday and shall have to write again. So I'm off to the Southgate Wetherspoon's (because it's a lovely sunny, blue-sky sort of a day here in London and that pub catches the sun in the afternoons) to have a few pints and get a little writing done - that way it is not work!

The above artwork, someone sent me anonymously recently. It has nothing to do with the piece I have just been outlining to you but I love it because it nicely illustrates a situation I've had in mind whereby (albeit in a watered-down form) one of our heroines, now nicely ensconced in a secure institution, is visited by the woman responsible for having manipulated the situation and having the girl placed there in first place. One can imagine the bitter chagrin felt by the girl in having that woman witness her punishment first-hand.

Finally, thanks to a comment posted on my last article, I've become aware of a nice little blog for you to check out. A very personal affair, this one - but one also chockablock with nice vintage spanking and ‘spankable bottoms’ pictures. Called Doonstartwo (I'm not sure if there is a Doonstar one) you can click here or the blog title to visit it or see the blog list in the right-hand sidebar.

Of London Parrots and Nurse-Spanked Schoolgirls

As you know I Don't usually make an entry on a weekend - especially if away from home, as I am this weekend. Not that I am very far from home geographically, just a couple of miles or so north and staying in an area called 'Bounds Green' - an area largely filled with late-Edwardian housing and a million miles away culturally from the crime-ridden grimness of Woodgreen and Turnpike Lane, perhaps a brisk 20 - 25 minutes walk away. Anyway, the 'other half' does a bit of teaching (fashion marketing and journalism and that sort of thing) and is bogged down marking student assignments which will take a couple of hours or so. There is not long enough to do much - though I should just have time enough to integrate some of the stuff I have written in the past week into the main body of the new book and perhaps do a little initial proof-reading / rewriting of some of the early sections if I do not spend too long here.

But having booted up my old trusty laptop - that I keep stashed here for just such opportunities - I thought I'd have a quick look at the blog and a read through of my email. Having spotted the record of my past fortnight's correspondence with Lulu (through whom I publish) and irritated by their lack of response to my latest email to them as regards the option to purchase my work as an electronic download being so obscure on their redesigned site (click here to read my previous gripes), I decided to try to do something about it myself. Accordingly I have just reconfigured the sidebar links to INSTITUTIONALISED volumes 1 and 2 (click for vol 2) on Lulu so as to take the potential reader straight to the electronic download page whereupon the volume concerned may be purchased for £3.75 - rather than the £8.95 plus postage they charge for a print copy.

I also thought I'd take this opportunity to share with you a few of the latest pics sent me from the 'Regulation Knickers' site (currently my only affiliated account - I have to pay the rent somehow) - mostly because the set looks right up my street but also because it fits in so well with the storyline developing in the new volume - the majority of which takes place before the events outlined in INSTITUTIONALISED volume 1. It's also nice not only to see a woman in a nurse's uniform (or governess?) in an authoritative position but also to see a school uniform in brown, as an alternative to the hackneyed navy-blue. It's as if they could read my mind!

On a completely different tack: While walking in Trent Park (Cockfosters - North London) this morning I heard - and on one occasion saw - several ring-necked parakeets. Now, I know that South-West London is chock full of the things (as was Kensington Gardens / Hyde Park, in the vicinity of the Serpentine, the last time I visited in late summer) and there are increasing numbers on Hampstead Heath in the Kenwood House area. But this is the furthest north I have come across them in London. I just wondered just how wide-spread these birds have become in London...so if you live in London (or elsewhere in the UK - I know there are communities around Margate and also in the Midlands, but where else are they?) and have come across what is apparently the world's most widely-distributed parrot please let me know. Now for a bit of real work - see y,all later.

A Strict Nurse in Uniform and a Girl in Medical Restraints

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I just came across this little gem of a pic of a strict nurse in uniform (left) on a YahooGroup that I will tell you about at a later date as I have to rush out soon _ I am off touring around the more far-flung reaches of Essex tomorrow for a few days and have to get a few pints in first! I have also noted how many of you have been checking out the medical bondage pic I posted a while back so thought I'd include a few more - again from a yahoo group. I particularly like the mitts pictured top right - just perfect for keeping interfering fingers out of the way should masturbation be a problem...and of course for heightening that all-important sense of helplessness and dependency, so crucial if one is striving to create the perfect model of the docile mental patient!

A comment, a Reply and a Good Excuse for a Few Magazine Scans from My Collection

A comment was left on the last post I made saying: “Why does it seem like the girls in all these uniform specialist sites don't wear a uniform...uniform? They have multiple girls in the same scenes that are all supposed to go to the same school, yet they wear radically different uniforms.”

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This got me to thinking – and to rummaging around in my collection of magazine scans (see later) as on the face of it, that's a good point. In this particular case I like to think of it as being a more of a 'domestic' scenario - two girls too old to be likely to be actually at school living with some guardian or relative and under the control of the strict governess she has hired to curb them. The uniforms I imagine as having been procured from some local charity shop (thrift / second hand shop with the sole intention of introducing an additional aspect of humiliation into the regime - perhaps as a stop-gap, the intention being to have a suitably imaginative, juvenile and shaming uniform made to measure to their own specification at a later stage once the girls have thoroughly resigned themselves to wearing what they have been given now. But it's not true of all their films / photo sets in any case and definitely is not true of those wonderful East European film makers I mentioned before. Meanwhile, as with written work, I am always on the lookout for work that more completely matches my – and I guess, your – interests and predilections; it is the main reason I started writing my own stuff, after all!As you will know if you are a regular follower of this blog; I’m always on the lookout for perfection and so often, even with the best, it is those little things that mar the result; the school blouse with the collar and or sleeve cuff buttons left unfastened, perhaps the school tie left loose in a slovenly fashion. Then there is always the cane-wielding nurse, house-matron or governess, the cuffs of her long-sleeved uniform dress left flapping in the breeze or who’s elastic webbing nurse’s belt hangs slack around her waist or – worse still – is wearing trainers or even (and I have seen this - a very good example can be seen here and that belt will never do either - such a shame as the girl is perfect) knee-high fashion boots when of course to maximise the psychological effect on her charge those cuffs should be buttoned and stiffly starched to boot, that belt should cinch her waist in such away as to enhance the imposing effect of her well-tailored and fitted uniform dress and her feet shod in laced-up and well-polished ‘sensible’ shoes or medium-heeled courts, depending on the situation. I have even seen such a figure with bare legs when as a minimum standard the hem of her uniform dress should softly sigh and swish against nylon stockings as she moves, but preferably she should be wearing old fashioned ‘fully-fashioned stockings of course.

See you all soon - for now I am off to Clacton on the East Coast for a few days, cycling around and hopefully doing a bit of writing. As for a bit of news: recently I have been playing around with the extended title of volume 2 in the hope of making it more visible to search engines. In part I seem to have succeeded as the hit rate on Lulu, the publisher's site, has gone through the roof but on the other hand, now no one seems to be buying it; I am left with the conclusion that perhaps i have made it now appear too 'hard core' which of couse it isn't... oh well!

A Little Snippet of Something

...for the immediate, there would be some respite - but for how long? How long would it be before that tormentress in nurse’s uniform, that inquisitor in rustling navy blue polyester, with that customary whiff of carbolic and disinfectant she always carried about her, would return, rattan or plastic switch in hand – or indeed, leather strap or tawse or perhaps even the fine-fronded martinet, this to be taken to the tender soles of her feet? By way of the lack of that certainty she would be forced to punish herself, psychologically – it was a deliciously subtle little mental torment and one expertly purpose-crafted to help her on her way down Matron’s chosen path for her. The one certainty was that at some point the woman would return and then she would be upended over her lap, skin-tight hospital-issue rubber knickers peeled back and the sweat-glistened drum-taut globes of her plump backside would be spanked with a latex-gloved hand or strapped with the heavy-leather tawse. Or perhaps, instead, she would be bent across the plastic mattress of her hospital bed, obliged to keep her arms folded tightly across the small of her back and her heels from the ground, with the promise ringing in her ears of a punishment repeated in its entirety should her posture falter in any way or should she tense her buttocks as her caning progressed from the upper slopes of her nether-cheeks, down the rear of her thighs to the sensitive flesh at the backs of her knees and then back again. And she would be in tears of course, well before the end, whether she be spanked across the woman’s knees or strapped or caned across her bed or the little school desk and chair combination she was obliged to work at - Matron always broke a girl to tears, it was just her way, it was good for discipline.

Just a little snippet of something I have just been writing (not yet proof read) - yes I know it's just more of the same, by which I mean there will seem little progression from INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2, but there is a good reason for that, which I will share with you later because I have to go out now.

A confession and Another Blog to Visit

I have to confess to having been in the pub all week since my return - but I have still managed to come across this new blog for you to look at. This is not the position I prefer to picture nurses in - in my writing the nurse invariable plays the dominant role - but her backside sure does look good with her bent over in that uniform. The blog is called YEOWCH, just click to visit or check out the blog list in the sidebar.

An Anonymous Reader's Contribution and a Couple of Blogs to Try Out

An anonymous contributor has left a new comment on your post "A Reader's Contribution and a Note for Judith's Aunt:

"Combinations might make an interesting choice of undergarment, but it's worth bearing in mind that these were normally made with an open crotch like Victorian drawers, which produces a somewhat different effect. Of course you could have closed combinations made with the lining material of choice, or add some sort of button fastening down below. I think the 1920 style combinations which had buttons down the back meeting a drop-seat in an inverted T shape would be better since the drop seat would provide easy access for discipline and the back buttons would be equally inconvenient. "

Yes, I think that for my preference I'd have to go along with the 'drop seat' approach especially if in combination with a suitably bulky absorbent towel or even a diaper - should the young lady warrant it. I feel I really must apologise for having left a week between postings but I have been away, cycling around the East Sussex country side. From Monday (or Tuesday, depending on whether or not I do the London to Brighton cycle ride) I plan to return updating on a more regular basis, perhaps every other day as I used to. My trusty note book goes everywhere that I do and I have been working on putting together some ideas regarding the structuring of the 'inbetweeny' volume that I have been talking about recently and also as regards the revamped cover for volume 2 that I wish to get completed before publishing that volume fully, ie through Amazon et al. Meanwhile a couple of blog links have been sent to me that you might like to explore: the first is Britsh Spanking . net (just click to visit), the link wasn't working when I tried it just now and so I am presently holding back from including it in my sidebar blog list (I am sure this is a temporary glitch, though, so keep trying and let me know).

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Also someone signing himself 'Spanking OTK' has left a new comment on the post "A Liberal Dose of the Nurse’s Tawse": "you have a nice blog. I wonder if you like exchange links between our blogs. Let me know! best regards ". I'd love to - but I have no idea of the blog address! Any ideas out there? Talking of nurses and tawses (which strictly speaking we weren't) someone recently sent me the photo of the wonderfully traditionally stern and uniformed matron adorning the top of this post - what do you think? The two school uniform pics are more from the set of scans I spoke of last time and originated from one of the Blushes, Whispers, New Supplement magazine stable (not sure which) and date (I think) from the mid 1990s.

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Bye, bye for now - Garth... somewhere in sunny East Sussex

How the Dodgiest of Design Work Can Inspire A New Direction…And A New Rubber Fetish Orientated Blog Link Added.

While undertaking a bit of desk research for my other half (a fashion journalist, as I have mentioned before) I recently came across this result of the collaboration between the dress designer Marc Jacobs and contemporary artist, Richard Prince. Of course I'd seen it many times before (I was actually at the show, but I don't like to name drop) but I had kind of forgotten all about it... although to tell the truth the collection did make quite an impact on me at the time.

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If one was to mentally remove that rather silly-looking face mask and replace the hat with a rather old-fashioned looking wimple-style headdress (and chuck the handbag of course - that has no place in institutional setting)... well, what an intriguing thought... would it work in the context of the psychiatric wing’s experimental suite? I have invoked plastic and rubber as part of the garb of the unit’s clinical trial volunteers, primarily in the form of the girl’s bloomers and knickers, in volume 1 of INSTITUTIONALISED and the nurses in charge of the girls routinely wear white or transparent plastic pinafores and aprons over their uniforms, depending on the task at hand. But could you envisage a nurse dressed such as this; perhaps regarding with a wry smile a pair of tautly bent chubby and rounded velvet soft buttocks, bared of their customary thin latex or PVC covering, the garment hanging and sagging heavily from between the girls well spread knees, while flexing a thin plastic wand of a cane near for circle between her latex gloved hands? Well, it couldn't happen in volume 2 - the stage has very much been set there now - but as for volume 3... well, who knows? Does it work, would it work? What you think? Let me know.

And on the subject of PVC, latex et al I retrieved this particular little snap from The Rubber Betty Blog (see blog list or click the blog name here). If it does not look too exciting at first sight, persevere - there is a hell of a lot of stuff there if you can be bothered to spend a few minutes digging around. It's a lovely little site for those into the rubber fetish, particular if you're looking for vintage pictures (it's not really my bag but I know it is for many of you from the feedback I've had in the past. I have not really got much in the blog list for the PVC and latex lover - I think this blog will be the first, pretty much - but trust me I am searching around all the time and will add more as I come across them, plus blogs catering for other related fetishes.

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My vision has always been that the resources made available through my blog should closely fit with the story arc of the institutionalised series as it develops - but that does cover a wide swathe of interests and that was always my intention in my story telling, while never losing sight of the underlying themes of domination, discipline and corporal punishment…and while hopefully retaining that all-important element of plausibility of course.