Referring to Written Impositions, a Link

Anonymous has left a new comment on the post "Keeping Grown Women in School Uniform..." (see last entry) but as much as anything referring to the delicious subject of written impositions (see for example the entry I posted on this subject back in September - Click HERE to read). He writes: "I hope in INSTITUTIONALISED volume 3 we will see the women kept terribly busy on mind-numbing tedious tasks such as copying out the entire Bible in their finest handwriting, or spending time doing lines and dictionary copying. The corner is god for a woman but she also needs to write for many hours a day. "

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Well, I can assure 'anonymous' that I have very many such tasks and impositions lined up for them. I have already said that I believe that in the context of the sort of institutionalised environment outlined in volumes 1 and 2 that such tasks as copying out a meaningful text such as the Bible would be deemed to embody too great an element of genuine educational value - ie they could well find interest and distraction in such a task. In such an environment some sort of dictation - to be taken down in their finest copperplate hand and the content of which they are obliged to learn verbatim despite it being nonsensical - is the order of the day. Although the term 'learning' is used here, the institution will of course have gone out of its way to ensure that there is no avenue through which anything might be gained of genuine educational benefit to the young ladies, or that might provide any relief from the tedium of the unit's strict disciplinary regime. It is for that reason that I endorse in the new book (the one that will fit between volumes two and three) the idea of their learning sets of deliberately incorrect and fabricated multiplication tables - they must concentrate fully on their task if they are to escape corporal punishment, thus they are denied the escape of daydream or fantasy in freeing them from the psychological impoverished environment of the 'schoolroom', yet benefit not one iota from the task. In the domestic setting to be outlined in volume 3, however, there is much scope for copying out suitably complex yet tedious texts, as suggested.

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All this has just reminded me; if such as above is your bag then you really must visit the 'Winterbrook Hall blog, that I have mentioned previously. There is the most fabulous piece of writing there - easily the best example of the use of written impositions, corporal punishment and schoolroom discipline I think I have ever read to date. Click HERE to visit / read. By the way; the image above right I have just been anonymously sent via email - origin unknown but it looks like another one of Thorn's to me, judging by the style.

Keeping Grown Women in School Uniform and the Search for a Suitable Governess Role Model

Those wonderful people at Aristasia - the folk behind that fine female disciplinary manual that I featured a while back - have made their television Documentary film, A Weekend at Miss Martindale's, available on Utube. Part 2 is particularly appropriate if good old fashioned classroom discipline is your thing - and I've kindly provided a link (just clic on the pic to the right-hand side above. Seeing an obviously quite mature woman treated as a naughty school child and meekly accepting it as if a matter of course got me to thinking yet again as to how appearances can influence behaviour, both directly and also indirectly - by affecting the way the individual is viewed and treated by others. For example 18-year-old Jessica here (right) is very much kept in school uniform by her guardian, full-time, seven days a week, 365 days a year. In many areas of the world she would be old enough to vote or even marry; but as seen here, in her school summer dress, or if you were to come across her in the winter months in her gymslip, starched white blouse, striped tie and blazer and with her hair tied up in pigtails, ask yourself this - would you be prepared to hand her any sort of responsibility? Would you treat her, as I'm sure she would prefer, as an adult or would you more likely be incline to have her stand in the corner with her hands on her head or sit her at a school desk and have her lovingly copy from the pages of some long-winded and tediously mind-numbing tome. Similarly, it would seem the most natural thing in the world to lecture this group on the left, but I know for a fact (because it's a scene from a new movie) that the young lady closest to us is 22 years of age. I recall once reading a magazine interview with one of the actresses that had played a schoolgirl in the film The prime of Miss Jean Brodie in which she told of how the various members of the movie company on the set and the canteen staff etc began to treat them differently when they were in the school uniforms they were required to wear and how they themselves had gradually subconsciously begun to fall into role as a result.

A similar argument can be put forward regarding the other side of the d/s relationship coin of course. A professional bearing and stern no-nonsense attitude is one thing and all well and good, but couple this with an appropriately authoritative manner of dress and a whole new dimension is opened up. This is one of the areas I've been researching on the Internet of late with regard to the events I have planned for INSTITUTIONALISED volume 3, when I eventually get round to writing it. My two young heroines, in the company of two other young women of similar age, are going to be under the care of a governess and a children's nurse or nanny for several months over the summer and although I have pretty much decided on the whole Victorian thing I've yet to decide exactly how these two women should appear. I've been hunting around for suitable images to use as a sort of role model so to speak. I came across this Gene Bilbrew drawing (right) which is one possible source of inspiration even if not in a Victorian mode.

But then again perhaps a governess should wear a uniform of some sort and certainly the nursery nurse must. Within the walls of a secure institution nothing could be more appropriate than a suitably authoritative and professional looking medical uniform (left) - perhaps that of the traditional ward sister or hospital matron; either would seem to endow the situation with a certain degree of legitimacy. One cannot overestimate the psychological effect and the impact produced. Can you imagine our Jessica, above, standing up to either of these two women?

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One can almost hear the words forming on their lips: “If you dare to disobey, expect punishment. From this moment on you are never to speak to me, unless I ask a question. Now, come hither young lady - drape yourself across my lap this instant, skirt up and knickers down! "

Me, Myself and I

Hi folks! Still on a learning curve with this but here I am in my natural working environment - outside the Tollgate pub (Wetherspoons) Turnpike Lane, North London. Bloody well couldn't connect via the pub's WI - FI network though. It turns out that it will only work with MS Explorer. Well, I am running Linux on the portable machine so bollocks to them, that's all I have got to say on the matter. I have been working on the new volume by the way, so I thought you might like a sneak preview of an early version of the foreword to it - intended to get the new reader up to speed as it were. I have to say though that this piece has changed quite drastically since its original conception. It is what I was working on yesterday when i took this pic but then the bloody batteries ran out in the computer before I could upload it via email or transfer it to a data stick and the charger / power supply thingy is at my mother's house so for the time being it is all in limbo. See you later - I'm off down the pub (probably in Enfield or Palmers Green, for you North London-ites).

Foreword to New Volume

St Mary's Hospital School - the motto: through obedience comes learning, through discipline comes obedience. It was humiliating enough that it should be proudly emblazoned on the front of the gymslip, let alone that it should be repeated on the breast pocket of the stiffly starched, high-collared blouse, the little open-fronted waist-length cape that fastened so tightly at the throat and 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 red and gold threaded embroidery spoke volumes. The crossed crook-handled canes, as a heraldic device, was of particularly questionable value; it practically openly stated to the world that here was a young lady kept subject to the kind of physical chastisement that most would have assumed had long been consigned to the history books. But then again, the uniform, in itself, was a thing of the past; an anachronistic throwback to long-obsolete values and the Victorian 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 the gleam in the eye of a misguided, if not downright twisted, psychologist.
Uncomfortably perched on the narrow bench seat of the cramped Victorian-styled school desk, its plastic tackiness adding to her discomfiture, a furtive glance up and to her right and those dulled eyes would meet with the equally soulless gaze of the window, one of three identical lining the wall. But she daren't - and besides, there was no relief to be had from monotony there, only whitewashed frosted glass cowering behind a guard of similarly whitewashed steel bars. To the front, no more than a couple of meters or so away, hung the reason why she daren't.
A single glimpse of the supple rattan, its heavier bamboo cane sibling and its leather-strap cousin and her eyes fluttered quickly back to her schoolwork; already she was falling behind with the dictation. Tears welling in those pretty deep violet eyes the realisation was finally dawning that there no matter how hard she tried, there always seemed to be some obstruction to her terminating her tenure, some excuse, some reason they could cite to justify extending her residence.
She was learning the hard way that freedom could be as tenuous as a spidery signature scrawled on a crumpled document - and the longer they kept her there the more likely it would be that she would docilely sign on the dotted line

More on Non-Corporal Punishment / Discipline

As promised: here are a few more page scans dealing with the intriguing subject of written impositions and other forms of non-corporal punishment and discipline - of which I prefer to focus on the latter. Click to enlarge and read. I will be adding some more commentary later today, when i am ensconced in the local coffee bar, it's just that it is easier to upload the images from home. Note that I do know than one of these pages I have uploaded before (page 50) (click HERE to read the previous posting and page scans from this series) but I have repeated it here for completeness and to make it easier to read through the whole thing.

I have also finally found the scan of the cover which I had mislaid so you can see the tomb that these pages were taken from. As I have said before; this is not one of my works - but I kind of wish it was, it is brilliantly written (I think)!

Note too that the term 'child' here is meant as a deliberately derogatory term and that the regimens outlined here are intended (and most suitable) for use with recalcitrant young ladies in their late teens or even early twenties residing certain private institutions or under the tutelage of a governess at home.

Non-Corporal Punishment, Written Impositions and a Trip Back to The West End

I had hoped to upload some more scans today - as outlined in my last posting - but typically I have been scuppered. I have to travel back to London's West End again - more specifically, to New Oxford Street. The reason? Although the new 'Net Book' computer I purchased yesterday worked well enough (though I still have to really get to grips with it) upon my arrival at home, when I went to put it on charge, I discovered the mains lead for its charger to be missing...AAAARRRGGH!!!! The scans would take a while to upload and I am in a bit of a rush. But as they were to be of pages of text on the subject of non-corporal punishment and discipline - punitive and procedural written impositions et al - and taking into account the comment I mentioned in my last communication, I thought I would quickly post up a couple of snippets of my own stuff from the new volume I have been working on (the prequel / in-between volume I have told you about in the past). It is all at a very early stage, you must understand, but hopefully you'll get a flavour - it needs a lot more work!

PS: I have also added a new blog I have just come across to the sidebar blog list. Called The Headmaster's study, you can reach it by clicking on the pic above right or check out the sidebar blog role.

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A Couple of Snippets

...she was to copy out a multiplication table; it was totally spurious and being purely of the research workers’ devising, bore scant resemblance to any truth or logic. The detailed make up of each such table she would subsequently be obliged to learn would be just as random - being computer-generated. In this way with each imposition or learning task having virtually guaranteed mutual exclusivity from any previous work, there was nothing that might constitute a pattern that could be discerned and that might allow the more astute girl to benefit from her previous impositions by easing the take up and recall of the new.

Rote learning and recital were the key principles in force here. Though those faceless individuals in charge of the place, on setting up the regime, would have known only too well that such ritualistic learning by memorizing was not the optimal learning method, since it focuses only on the transfer of information and misses the purpose of learning, it mattered not. Learning was not of primary concern here in any case. The true raison d'être, as with everything else this small, select unhappy band of young women were exposed to - be it the cruel social seclusion of the no talking rule, the personality-submerging restriction of the stifling and humiliatingly juvenile school uniform or the seemingly ever more petty and never-ending lists of rules and regulations which had to be adhered to and repeated verbatim at the drop of a hat – was discipline, pure and simple.

And that requirement for discipline was served well by the need to keep up, to concentrate; not only on recording the dictation, but doing so without recourse to correction - and while maintaining a near perfect copper-plate hand. It denied even the brightest among them sufficient pause as to press into employment any learning and recall strategies she might have picked up through her past academic endeavours. Indeed, there was insufficient mental freedom allowed them as to consider anything else; it kept them grounded within their physical surrounds, the escape of daydreams, of imagination, of wonder, was barred them at every turn.

To young Lavinia Vitesse none of this was entirely new, of course. But even so, there had been changes-a-plenty in her absence, far reaching changes, changes going far beyond the outward appearance of the girls themselves – though the new uniform was a drastic enough departure in itself...

...“Ok, girls, fingertips on shoulders, elbows smartly out to the sides. Not like that, 16S, you stupid girl! That's better, elbows right back, nice and tight. Now, class, I'm glad to report that every one of you finally managed to get through your multiplication tables successfully in the last session. There were one or two stumbles and corrections, to be sure, but generally I'm satisfied that you finally have them drummed into those thick heads of yours.”

Six pairs of wide eyes stared fixedly ahead, locked on to the white board or more accurately, the long, thin, tapering cane that hung along side it; near-on one and one half metres of whippy white-plastic perfection, capable, under expert wielding, of a finely resolved and graduated chastisement, from the faintest, stingily-pink, lines, through raised and purpling wheals of throbbing agony to the actual splitting of velvet peach pink flesh, drawn drum-tight through hairpin-bent, ankle-grasping and straight-legged stance...

Toyntanen Goes Mobile 2: Live and on the Road!

So here I am, sitting in my local (Well fairly local ; Wood Green, North London) coffee bar. Today I finally found a basic, cheap and neat (small) 'Net Book' computer sorted out - an Asus eeePC 900, running some flavor of Linux and weighing in at a smidge less than 1 kilo and sporting a solid state drive (so much more robust for when I fall off - or get knocked off - my bike). Today's posting was only ever intended as trial run, on the move as it were, with the new machine as I am on a learning curve with it (I have only had it a couple of hours at this point) and I don't have my trusty wireless micro-mouse with me - I don't get on well with touch pads, I'm far too shaky. But I have something lined up for tomorrow - or some time later in the week, depending on how things go - and which I made mention of in my last posting, on Friday. It seems, though, as if at least one reader / contributor can read my mind. As a comment appended to my last entry, anonymous writes :

"I would love it if your future writing included heavy and severe doses of non-corporal punishment, such as writing thousands of lines, copying page after page from the dictionary or telephone book, standing in the corner for many hours contemplating the intersection of two walls, etc."

I couldn't have put it better myself! Your wish is my command, old chap! Check out what is coming next - right up your ally I'd wager, even if I can't personally claim authorship in this case. But trust me: many of the ideas you will be exposed to (and many more besides) will feature in much of my future outpourings.

Toyntanen Goes Mobile / Startled by (A) Marvel

Yet again I have been guilty of neglect where this blog is concerned (and lust about everywhere else in my life too). I tend to use everything and anything as an excuse to go down the pub and my hand injury and daughter's illness have been no exception to the rule! In my defense, though, I must say that I also suffer quite badly with depression and it doesn't take much to set off an episode and again, another drinking spree soon follows. Today however I had resolved to stop... but it is such a lovely sunny day here in autumnal London I fear a visit to a pub garden or two will have to be scheduled into my itinerary.

But fear not, gentle reader, for I have my enthusiasm for writing back and some great ideas and very soon you will find me updating the blog even more regularly than I did at its peak. You see I am going to be purchasing, very soon, a light weight computer, one of those ones that doesn't have a hard drive, that I can carry about with me - possibly today because I expect to be popping down to John Lewis in the West End (Oxford Street) a bit later on.

I expect the thing to come with a built in camera (that's the plan, but if it doesn't I can always carry my trusty digital) and so I will also start updating with a picture of my surroundings each time and from anywhere I can get a wireless broadband connection. I prefer to work away from the desk as much as possible - in pubs, parks, cafes etc - and so you can expect glimpses of all sorts of bits of London (and elsewhere) - famous landmarks, the not so well known, the infamous and the downright scummy underbelly (like my local pub - though it was probably fine until I moved in).

Now, do you remember that comic-book cover I posted a while back? Well look about you, true believer, and you will see!

Punitive hair cutting, gagging, chained bondage - it has it all - shame about the lack of focus when it comes to the corporal punishment aspect, but you can't have everything... and I can't quite work out how the sexual servitude thing would work either, given the size differential.

As always, just click on any picture to see a larger version. I hope to venture into the gym for the first time since injuring my hand later today and I'll let you know how it went. Next up will probably be some more pages from that manual of female discipline that I have in my possession and that I told y'all about and that did so much to influence my writing - particularly in the direction of non-corporal punishment ironically. Unless I pick up my new portable computer today or over the weekend, that will probably have to wait until Monday. Meanwhile I have at last started work on the immediate follow-up to INSTITUTIONALISED volume 2. As I think I have said before (but I'm so drink-befuddled these days I can never be sure) it is not volume 3 but rather a sort of prequel / linking work that pulls together all the loose ends and avoids my having to work with flashbacks in volume 3 and in which we learn all about the way in which both Lavinia and Susan were manipulated into their situation, the domestic aspect of their discipline, in the case of Lavinia, the uniform she was placed in at home. We also learn how both came to be so dependent on the woman that had set herself up as their governess, lost her self confidence and sense of defiance, became a virtual prisoner in the woman's home - through the gradual development of agoraphobia and a debilitating stammer - and was initially introduced to, and learned to accept, corporal punishment at that woman's hands.