A Saturday Tale - and a Few Words of Explanation

It Saturday morning and as I'm writing this lines of red double-deckers (buses) are disgorging those of semi-local shoppers that still have the odd pound or two in their pocket. Not that Wood Green Shopping City (the local mall) is quite the retail magnet it once was - these days its upper level more resembles a pub brawled''s is grin. Anyway, today I'm at the Tollgate, a pub in Turnpike Lane, North London. It has just gone 9 a.m. and the excuse (and I do feel a need one) is purely medicinal. Not that I ever suffer hangovers per se you understand, but I am left somewhat shaky at times after a good skinful the night before. Yesterday evening was squandered in the John Logie Baird pub in Muswell Hill (Yes the TV inventor Geezer - no not that kind of TV, that invented itself. Actually the bloke lived much of his life in Hastings on the south coast - so hands up anyone who knows his connection with this place). Perhaps the word 'squandered' is being just a little harsh - I did nearly - not quite, but very nearly - finish all the right he required to top out INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2. And in my defence I must point out that yesterday morning I typed up another 950-ish words (and close to another 2000 the day before that).

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The reason I am bothering to say any of this is to excuse the delay in adding the text portion to my last posting. As you may have guessed from the title my aim was to group together a series of images that appeal to my taste, that I have come across during my various exploratory expeditions into Web-world and that, to my mind at least, if considered sequentially tell a tale roughly analogous to the INSTITUTIONALISED storyline thus far. I hope the originators don't mind but I've left the crediting details intact so that they should benefit from the exposure in any case (Except the captioned image which someone sent me anonymously).

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From left to right and from top to bottom we have the luscious Rosalyn Young (I hope I've spelt that right) representing the epitome of the domestic face of discipline - what a wonderful little uniform for aaround the home! Then we have that intake/admission procedures scene from the Bars-and-Stripes site - what I like particularly about this one is all the tiny details they have included. There is that 1950s prom dress of course - a delicious confection in its own right, I'm sure you'd agree - but then there is that thick white line marked out on the floor and that young Lady's toes are just touching. What's so important about that, I hear you ask? In fact I'd wager that few will have even noticed it. But that simple white line is what this picture is all about; it is the story it is telling writ large. Note how that line is spaced away from the desk that the young woman facing. It is not the natural place to stand - and to my mind that is the point. It is irritating, petty, frustrating, restrictive - it is all of those things and more, but what it really represents is that young woman's life - at least for the foreseeable future.

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As for the rest you can probably guess - and that's the point really; to mentally craft your own tale. But I have to say that to my mind nothing quite conjures up so much imagery as a girl being caned across the toilet pedestal by woman in a nurse's uniform. The absolute epitome of institutionalised discipline, don't you think! Corporal punishment, petty rules, even toilet training, it's all there written out in that one image.

A Story-Board Montage Skimmed from the Web (See Next Posting - Above - for Text)

Volume 2: Blurb from Back Cover

This is the 'blurb I plan to use on the back cover and/or story-line descriptions etc. I may well have to pare it down for the book cover - we will see.

"St Mary's Hospital School - the motto: through obedience comes learning, through discipline comes obedience. Humiliating enough that it should be proudly emblazoned on the front of the gymslip, the breast pocket of the stiffly starched blouse, the little open-fronted waist-length cape - that fastened so tightly at the throat that she wore on occasion over the top - and just about every other item of clothing to boot. As a statement of intent that fine embroidery spoke volumes; the crossed crook-handled canes as a heraldic device was of particularly questionable value, practically openly stating to the world that here was a young lady subject to the kind of physical chastisement that most would have assumed had long been consigned to history. But then again, the uniform too was a thing of the past, an anachronistic throwback to long-obsolete values and the mentality of seen-but-not-heard, quite-as-a-mouse submissive femininity. Bad enough, then, that she was way past school age - worse still that the institution in question was little more than the outcome of a gleam in a psychologist's eye. Elsewhere another young woman, already resigned to the ugly green and white striped nylon dress constituting her prison uniform, was beginning to appreciate the real meaning behind the nomenclature: Victorian Workhouse. One of three such 'residential controlled environments' shut away in a secure suite within the dark recesses of an experimental psychology unit, itself embedded deeply behind the barred windows and security grilles of a privately funded hospital's secure psychiatric wing.

Both have in common that they are at loggerheads with their respective guardians, both are volunteers here having been persuaded of the advisability of having a financial buffer before starting university, but more importantly before undertaking mounting a legal challenge for their inheritances and rights... the financial return for a 90 day residential clinical trial had seemed too good to be true - perhaps it was. For both these young women it had been far easier to join then it was turning out it would be to leave - there was always some obstruction, some excuse, some extension to their stay justifiable by one clause or another. Both were now learning the hard way that freedom could be as tenuous as a spidery signature scrawled on a crumpled document."

Volume 2 Cover, The Saga Continues: Any Comments?

Just thought I'd keep you updated as to the INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2 cover progress. I have now made some changes to the front cover and have started work on the back cover. I'm going to take a break now to write up / transcribe some of the stuff I wrote in the pub on Monday.

A Provisional Cover for INSTITUTIONALISED Volume 2

Looking absolutely nothing like my hand-drawn layout guide (and barely related to it - click to view) here is what I would describe as a first-draft-provisional-cover for INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2. Basically what happened was, I had had such a 'skin-full' last night that I couldn't face writing anything. So I started messing around with The Gimp (a Linux-based PhotoShop clone) and this is the result - it needs further attention but I thought I'd run it up the flagpole and see who salutes. Translation from the 'management-speak: Comments please...

A Blog and a Film to Check Out

If you enjoy institutional discipline/punishment (and who doesn't) you might like to check out http://rohrstockpalast.blogspot.com/ (See the sidebar blog list or click on pic or blog name to visit). Meanwhile, I'm back from the coast and getting on with volume 2 - just to give you an update...I was in Hampstead last night (The Flask) and I just might be found in either the The Turnpike, Sprouter's Corner or Alfred Herring later today - all North London Weatherspoon pubs (might even make it to the Southgate Weatherspoons - who knows?).

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The pic on the right I found on the same blog (I think) and just couldn't resist. It's the the knickers-on-hooks thing - look to the right of the drawing. What a wonderfully humiliating little piece of discipline that is...for a girl to have to leave her knickers hanging in full view on entering the classroom (of course I would have them left carefully folded on their desks in front of them, gusset outermost).

A new Post

Hi!
I have just made a new post but because part of it was drafted last week (the silly drawing) it has come up as if posted last Wednesday and so it has been positioned as the posting before last. Take a look coz it includes a contribution posted in.