New: John Willie Album Added

Hi folks! Yet another week has flown by without an update, To be honest I hardly noticed as I have been concentrating near flat-out on developing and writing the new volume...That and getting to grips with finding and getting acquainted with a new gym. My old gym closed down without warning - and with very little offered by way of a sensible explanation - around two weeks back. As luck would have it, I only had a couple of weeks or so to run on a year's membership package but I am still hoping it will reopen as I am a creature of habit and had gotten used to going there. Meanwhile I have found another gym up in Palmer's Green (North London).

Now for some news: I have added a few more Lynne Paula Russel / Paula Meadows illustrations to the relevant Picasaweb spanking art album (see side bar on right hand for link listed under Spanking Artwork Albums). In addition, I have now created a Picasaweb album to hold the art of that fine bondage / CP illustrator John Willie. I have gathered together 28 illustrations from various internet sources thus far and will be adding more from my own collection as and when I get around to scanning them in - I own a complete set of John Willie's 'Bizarre' magazine reprints and also some other publications featuring his work. Click here to go to the John Willie album or check out the link in the sidebar, as above.

The Bad-Bunny Punishment Suit

Recently I have been enthusing over the work of an artist going by the Monika of Thorn, though rumor persists that the originator is this guy, Hobbs. Whatever the truth it is rare that any artwork has been quite so stimulating in terms of being a catalyst for ideas for incorporation within my own work – other than the work of Roger Benson I suppose, particularly his reformatory series. One tantalizing possibility that fired my imagination was the prospect of a collaboration with this Thorn / Hobbs chap illustrating my scribblings. But faced with the apparent impossibility of making contact with the chap and his reluctance to defend his own work, if indeed he is being plagiarized, I have been led to the depressing conclusion that he might well be deceased.

Imagine my delight then when, while searching for yet more undiscovered Thorn / Hobbs imagery I stumbled across the work of Julian Guile, not a name I have run into before. It turns out that I have unwittingly posted up an example of this artists work before, albeit in a low resolution form - an image that was sent to me anonymously and was entitled 'The Detention Room' and displayed a high degree of imagination in the design of the miscreant's seating arrangement. The latter is little more than a perch and is undoubtedly very uncomfortable - but so practicable when it comes to instant correction by way of the application of cane or strap. This little innovation is what rescues the subject matter from what so easily could have been something rather hackneyed and stereotypical.

The way this artist captures the all-important psychological effect on the young lady by way of her expression and body language is masterful and very reminiscent of the aforementioned Thorn / Hobbs – he successfully captures the emotional pain and how it may surpass the merely physical in its way.

If further evidence of this guy's creativity is called for, one needs look no furtherer than this little number entitled 'The Bad-Bunny Suit' – below, right. Designed to make the wearer look and feel ridiculous and humiliated while facilitating the application of corporal punishment, a real stroke of genius is evidenced in the design of the sleeves. The latter, terminating in fingerless mittens, extend beyond the fingers and seem designed to incorporate a brass eye or ring at the extremity – all the better to secure flailing limbs. Even the 'bunny-ears' undoubtedly included to further exaggerate the absurdity of the outfit, could be pressed into service to secure the young lady if so called upon. Suitably furnished at their tips with metal rings or eyes they would make fine anchor points to conjoin with similar rings attached to tabs sewn into the waistband or perhaps attached to the toes of the suit if it should be required to restrain the young lady into an acute hairpin-bent posture during the progression of her correction.

What could be more humbling for a girl in her late teens than having to wear such a ridiculous outfit, clearly designed with corporal punishment in mind and leaving little in doubt in the mind of the observer, while fully aware that it also doubles as a restraint system and that, so suited and with her behind so charmingly displayed, she is completely at the mercy of her master or mistress. She has been rendered ridiculous, impotent and helplessly subject to corporal punishment at the whim of whomever in one swoop – what more could one ask of a well-designed punishment outfit?

That Thorn / Hobbs Drawing - Revisited

Today you find your scribe sitting working in the local Wetherspoons pub – I had intended to go to the gym but it turns out that it is going to be shut for a few days. So here I am, sat sitting, and leafing through my notebook I came upon the second part of the piece I wrote around that old Thorn / Hobbs illustration. If you pop back to the original piece / illustration you will understand that this takes the form of some rather rambling thoughts that came to me while sitting in a pub having earlier in the day stumbled across a printout of this old drawing that i had all but forgotten about. Basically it is a series of ideas and thought processes that sprang naturally from the ambiguity of the scenario depicted and as such the ideas tend to branch and grow and pile one upon the other in no particular order but based around certain assumptions about the interrelationship of the participants. At this point I had moved in on a certain assumption as regrades the seated older woman.

Assuming that the woman is a teacher or governess having the intent of returning the young trollop to a strict regime of scholastic discipline, is it then her intention of only leaving the shop once she has the girl suitably dressed from head to foot in full school uniform? Although it seems doubtful that such an establishment as this would seem to be from the visible clues available would stock attire that would be deemed suitable in any conventional sense, in the case of a young lady, schooled in seclusion and kept largely out of public view, that sensibility might be shifted somewhat. On the other hand, being an efficient and well organised woman, might she have arranged beforehand to have a suitable complete wardrobe delivered from elsewhere? Then again, perhaps our young lady will be relieved to find herself handed back the fashionable adult outfit she arrived in, only to be much later dismayed when led to an old-fashioned school outfitters, hidden away in the backstreets, and shown through to a rear stockroom that looks as if it has been frozen in time since the 1950s.

This is where the artist (whoever he might in reality be) has surpassed himself, in the way that he uses the girl's body language to tell the story. Anything seems possible from this point onwards; just a glance at the position of the girl's hands and arms and one instantly reads that this girl, however defiant she might have been before, is now ready to go through almost anything rather than receive further cuts across her backside from that cane lying readily to hand on the table in the foreground. And surely at this particular moment she would welcome any form of covering rather than suffer further the feeling of naked defencelessness that undoubtedly fills her. If she were to be led to a changing room right at that moment, perhaps puzzling as to the fact that her clothing has been left out on the shop-floor, eyeing the young female assistant, barely older than herself, nervously, she might well react in dismay at the sight of the green and white, candy-striped, school blouse draped over the assistant's arm and the short-bodied bottle green 'bum-freezer' blazer waiting on a hanger at the rear, but would she have the temerity to voice her objection? Isn't it more likely that under the circumstances she would be welcoming of any form of covering, however humiliating it might seem? And even if she did balk, perhaps dismayed as the light catches the proffered blouse's satin fabric - seemingly more appropriate if incorporated in a bridesmaid's dress - and she realises that she can make out the shop assistants fingertips through the sheer fabric, perhaps noting for the first time the high, stiffened Eton collar, the equally stiff long cuffs and the childish subtly-puffed shoulders, she knows that the cane is still there waiting. A few wickedly burning strokes landed across her bottom in full view of the young shop assistant would soon have her fingers fumbling with the buttons, her cheeks burning and even deeper shade of red as the skin-close fit becomes apparent; the fitted in-sweeping side-panels curve notably inwards along the contours of her torso and the clever darting at the bosom allows the buttoning to nestled deep within the separation of her bust, tending to exaggerate her already quite generous feminine attributes. I can well imagine that if created by the mind behind this store, then she would find that the collar would button as tight as to seemingly threaten strangulation - even before the diagonally striped, green and gold, school tie is knotted about her neck - and would be as restrictive as to oblige her to keep her chin raised.

The school tie can only add to this sense of restriction. Nestling in the valley between her melon-thrusted breasts it acts to draw the eye to her cleavage, just as the short blazer, buttoning only at the waist by way of two buttons and thus open the front, seems calculated to draw the gaze inwards to where the thimble outline of her nipples can clearly be seen through the thin fabric, raising this already naturally shy girl's self-consciousness to a new level and conversely sending her self-confidence crashing. The form fitting blazer, with its broad lapels drawing in the eye, reveals more than it covers - indeed, it's more a showcase than a covering.

Perhaps a full-length slip might ordinarily have been called for, certainly if she were to leave wearing the gym tunic that has been supplied, but this woman has other ideas for her charge and for today a white nylon waist-slip has been considered sufficient. The thick nylon petticoat has been styled as if a pencil skirt and its reinforced hem girdles the girl's upper thighs allowing only the daintiest of gaits -there will be no more unsightly and feminine striding out for her, nor running about, nor any other activity that might be considered too 'boisterous'.

Beneath that, the bloomer-style interlocked-cotton school knickers fit as closely as if a sprayed-on second skin. Their latex inner lining clings intimately to her flesh and embarrassingly so in all the wrong places. Their frilled leg-cuffs, reaching down and dimpling prettily the lower part of her thighs, are adorned with bottle-green nylon satin bows at the sides; the ribbon being striped with gold so as to match the school tie, the ribbon trim around the lapels and detailing of the blazer and the ribbon bows that will later dress her hair, it is clear that this feature is very much designed to be on show, charmingly peeking out from beneath the hem of her skirt as she walks. As for the latter, the skirt is a conventional enough circular sunray-pleated affair realised in bottle green or light blue as appropriate, perhaps even a pastel shade - a full school uniform realised in soft pastel pinks and baby blues could be an interesting departure don't you think - flaring markedly out from an overly tight, perhaps belted, waistband and coming to its hem at no more than mid-thigh at most. Long coltish legs might perhaps be thought best left bare, perhaps finished off with white frilled, turnover ankle socks, the tops decorated with a dainty ribbon bow at the front or back on the outer sides as preferred and in a suitable colour so as to match skirt, blazer and shoes or perhaps striped so at to match the school tie, the ribbons in her hair and those at the leg-cuffs of her knickers.

As if this were not enough to crush the sturdiest of spirits, then a single glance at the badge emblazoned on the breast pocket of the blazer, mirroring that embroidered on the breast pocket of school blouse beneath, should do so, most assuredly - it would certainly do nothing to ease the girl's discomfiture, promising as it does, a suggestion of her future. Two wicked looking crook-handled canes are depicted crossed over an open school textbook and surmounted by the words: 'St Anne's Reformatory' and a legend curving beneath reading: 'chastisement, discipline and obedience' in a curling embroidered copperplate. That the named establishment does not formally exist is neither here nor there, it is the intent that it implies that matters here - and the confidence-undermining affect that the woman intends it to have on her charge's mind.

Now suitably subdued, our young lady is led away from the store. But perhaps not back to where she headed out from so cheerily that morning, perhaps a new home awaits - but of this latter development she is presently blissfully unaware. As of this moment, she feels that little could be more humiliating than her present circumstances – she couldn't be more wrong. There is much waiting in the wings that she is destined to feel more humbling than this – how misguided she is if she considers this to be her absolute cringe-worthy limit. But then of course she has yet to be sat in the barber's chair: “She wants a nice trim – side-parted and as short as a boy's. Isn't that right dear?”.

And she still has her appointment with the orthodontist specialist to look forward to: she isn't at all sure that she needs braces on her teeth, and most would agree. She certainly isn't looking forward to it, nor viewing the result in the mirror. Her anxiety is well founded, despite the constant reassurances – unbeknownst to her the ironwork has already been chosen and there is nothing modern, lightweight and discreet about it! But then again her guardian is a woman well known as nothing if not a perfectionist, Shes is also not one to squander a pretty penny on cosmetic dentistry without the promise of a good return. It is the all-in-one efficacy of the treatment that has attracted her attention: Perfect that near perfect smile, do something about the petulant brat's overwrought vanity and curb her incessant chatter, all in one...Perfect. Idiotically impeded speech the girl might well be cursed with as a result, but her guardian has set great store on that velvety tongue of hers not being so impeded that it can't be later educated to serve and to please in the correct manner. That day might still be someway off - perhaps still too far off to properly plan for – but that day will come. One that day one uniform will be swapped for another and the girl will find that a promising academic career will have been swapped for lowly service, the pen for the dustpan and the office chair for the kneeling pad..

So there you have it, an unashamedly rambling example of how a single pic can lead one thought to another and yet another.

Nostalgia...Such Sweet Agony!

Hi chums. Just a quick update. My gym is shut today so I am sitting outside my local wetherspoons pub but before I came out I fixed my home desktop computer. The problem turned out to be a faulty case fan, not a power supply fan as i had feared. I had already bought a suitable replacement which took just a few minutes to fit, so as from tomorrow normal service will be at last resumed and i will also be continuing with my publication-scanning project (eventually to encompass not just spanking literature / images but also a whole range of subjects – some of which are not related in the slightest and may deserve their own blog / website). I have had one or two requests - including one for images of women holding the good old fashioned Scottish tawse – which i shall be happy to oblige in the fullness of time, possibly beginning with those tawse pics as i am searching for such images myself at present with an eye to the cover of the upcoming new volume. Talking of imagery – Monday afternoon last, saw my journalist / fashion-bunny partner and your scribe at the Victoria and Albert museum , attending an exhibition of digital / computer art. Then it was off across the Thames to the BFI (British Film Institute) to attend a preview of the film, '44 Inch Chest' which was followed by a question and answer session with one of the writers, David Cinto, and two of the actors, John Hurt and Ray Winston. It has been commented – and having seen it, I concur - that it would make a good stage play. I would imagine it running something along the lines of an Arther Miller production, but that;s just me. More interesting stuff (as far as you spankos are concerned) will be coming your way tomorrow, but for now I have to nip down to a deservedly obscure land known as Stokenewington. I lived there once, in the period when my wife and I had our little submissive plaything living with us. It is a tale that I have alluded to more than once before and that coincidently I was reminded of only yesterday. I was somewhat worse for wear, swaying in a fairly rough Tottenham pub and fairly drowning in nostalgia, watching 1980s pop videos on their plasma screen, when I spotted a scene shot in Regent Street in which, in the background, could be seen the window of the old Alexandra Workwear shop (now sadly departed this earth) featuring a manikin kitted-out in a rather fetching light blue nurse's dress. I will always remember our first trip to that emporium with our Penny – my wife had spotted a nice ensemble in its window, an odd confection in hindsight, the dress having a skirt in a solid block of colour and its bodice in a pastel candy-stripe, the two parts being realized in two entirely different fabrics with the upper part having the charming attribute of almost appearing semi-transparent under certain circumstances. Well certainly it could reveal enough with little more than quarter-cup support beneath – and our young penny was somewhat over-endowed in that department as I recall – very fetching with a candy-striped waist apron to match and – later – a lace-trimmed cap. There were a few yelps and swishy cane-strokes involved in that venture – when we got her back home – I can tell you! Ahhh! Nostalgia...Such sweet agony it is!

Startled at an Antique Shop in Rye (East Sussex)...Or: A Sign of its Times?

Hi chums!

I had hoped to continue with my 'Thorn' / 'Hobbs' illustration-inspired ramblings this time but as I am still stuck with using my little 'NetBook' until I can get home long enough to make repairs to my desktop it is taking longer than usual to transfer my rough note pad work for the new volume into computer form. As I am presently making this a priority it means less time is left available to dedicate to the blog. However I thought some of you might be amused by this old sign board (perhaps recovered from an old pharmacy) that I saw in the window of an antique shop in Rye (East Sussex) during my Christmas break there. Very much a sign of its times, it instantly brought certain imagery to mind. One can imagine the dismay registering on the face of a petulant young lady of the Edwardian or Victorian era who, having already accompanied her new governess to the village saddle makers (saddler) and witnessed the purchase there of an intriguing and unusual harness contraption, not to mention a plaited leather switch – despite not owning a pony – is next led over to the village pharmacy and to the myriad unfamiliar items so categorised, discreetly tucked away in some dark corner.

Unfortunately, try as I might, I couldn't get both halves of the sign in the frame in close up at the same without some part of the window frame intervening and so I took a pair of close up shots meaning to piece them together later on th computer. Neither looked too wonderful and so I then intended to take a couple more, backed up by a long shot from the other side of the street. The trouble was that then the shop keeper, presumably having spotted me, began unbolting the door and things rapidly started getting complicated. This, then, is the best shot – at some point I may create the composite image as I had intended, if anyone is interested, but at the present time, limited to the tiny 'Netbook' screen, it would be difficult to do a good job on it. This thing is fine for text, but pretty crap for doing any image manipulation or art work – which is why, for the time being, I am holding back on doing any design work on the cover for the new volume, despite having come up with some really good (I think!) ideas for both it and the eventual INSTITUTIONALISED volume 3 (when I eventually get around to writing it). By the way: the second, hidden half of the sign reads 'Hot Water Bags'...See y'all next time.

An Update and a New Link Added to Spanking Universe

I have had to delay working on fixing my main computer until Thursday for various reasons and so I don't expect to be fully up and running until the following Monday, depending on whether it turns out that I have to purchase a new power supply or not. Meanwhile I have just updated the blog list in the sidebar to include a new link to Richard Windsor's Spanking Universe, the hub of all things spanking - as was always part of the intention behind this blog - and now a full-blow website. I am also carrying on working on the new volume using my 'netbook' machine but in the absence of my usual voice recognition software, progress is a little slow. I Hope to get a proper posting made tomorrow, continuing on from my last and including the stuff I couldn't get typed in last time due to various time constraints but that is already written out longhand in my note pad.

'That' Thorn Sketch – A Case for Analysis, a Thousand Tales Woven Within

This must be about the only blog that has not wished its readership a merry Christmas and a happy New Year, as is traditional this time of the year! My apologies; I had intended to do so from the hotel in which I spent the Christmas holidays (of which, more next time), down there in Rye – a medieval town situated in east Sussex – but was unable to get convenient access to the Internet, and in any case came under not unsubstantial pressure from the 'little lady' to pay more attention to her needs and pay less to my 'ridiculous hobbies'...Well, I never! So, retrospectively, may I wish you all, where ever you might be and whatever your faith, a very happy Christmas and Good luck for the New Year. Talking of which; due to the upcoming New Year celebrations and various family commitments, my next update will probably not be until January 4^th 2010, after which I expect there to be a couple of days when I shall be silent, during which I shall be undertaking repairs to my main desk computer, before embarking on a whole series of projects that I have planed for the upcoming year and which include more frequent and regular updates to the blog and its eventual expansion into a full-blown web site.

Now to a bit of news and a little inspiration that came to me in the pub having earlier been perusing an old back-up DVD of my scans and web download collection on a friends computer. The artworks presented above left and right – both scanned some time ago from an old magazine, I forget which - could so easily fit with certain aspects of the story arc depicted in the upcoming 'in-between' volume or indeed the planed story line of INSTITUTIONALISED volume 3. Both perfectly encapsulate that essential spirit I am striving for, but not necessarily overtly spotlighted; just as the real 'meat' of a tale is often best written 'between the lines' so the inspiration here lies in all the little details that at first go unnoticed, yet between them voice the narrative without further need for elaboration.

Taking into account what I have just said above, it is the illustration presented here - below and to the right - that caught my attention and that I would urge you to focus your attention on. Drawn by one of my favorite artists, Thorn, it is also one of my favorite images (or rather it has been – I somehow lost track of it in recent years; I think I downloaded it some ten years ago!) and one of the most inspirational illustrations, in terms of developing the ideas behind my writing, that I have ever come across.

As I said above in connection with the other two images;
The real interest is not so much the rather attractive young lady, her pert breasts, nor the cane-lines running across that ripe, full backside of hers. Rather the tale resides in what has been left unsaid, hinted at by all those little details residing in the background. If it has a title, I don't know it, nor do I know exactly what the artist's intentions are in terms of what he is striving to depict here, the scenario he has in mind – nor would I want to know (so if you definitively know, don't tell me – though I'd love to know your interpretation). The full interpretation is left open to the mind of the viewer – and therein lies the excitement and its enduring interest for me.

All I know about this guy is that he is an absolute master of depicting the infliction of cruel and imaginative humiliation. In particular he is a virtuoso of capturing the emotional effect of that humiliation in the unhappy faces of his succulent young subjects. What I would give to have him collaborate on one of my books! Each of his illustrations is a story in itself and if a picture might paint a thousand words – as someone once said – than surely this particular illustration outweighs that estimation tenfold; he has surpassed himself here! This image I think I downloaded around ten years ago or more and it has never been far from the roots of my imagination since. Why? Well, the magic so far as I am concerned is all in the unanswered questions it poses – there is just so much here to ponder that is left open to interpretation.

For a start; there is nothing about the background that necessarily sets the scene in any restrictive manner – it is not a schoolroom, reformatory, convent or any other obviously institutional setting, nor would it seem to be a domestic environment. The scene seems set in some sort of shop - yet even this is not necessarily set in stone. The male could be a shop assistant or - if an exclusive bespoke establishment, as one might imagine – perhaps the owner. But what type of emporium might this be? In the background one can see a pair of half-torso manikins – one proudly displaying what would appear to be a revealing corset of fetishistic restrictiveness and the other demonstrating what looks to be a locking chastity belt.

The girl - surely too young and sheltered in upbringing to be so worldly-wise as to yet know of such things – is being laced into a cruelly-constricting waist-cincher and one is left wondering whether which, if any, of those background items is to follow. And she is plump enough to give creative scope to the corsetier's art; which is an important point here. She has obviously recently felt the kiss of a supple cane across her plump buttocks; indeed, a suspect implement lies discarded in the foreground, along with what one assumes to be her discarded and, notably very ordinary, 'girl next door' underwear. Did she initially object to being fitted with that cincher, or perhaps to disrobing in front of the elderly chap - and if so, was he the author of those throbbing swollen wheals (I for one would like to think so). If I was to be critical at this point, it would be to say that I would have liked to have seen some evidence of previous sessions with the cane; perhaps some faint, fading marks or even something suggestive of permanent marking – something that the girl is only too well aware she will carry through life - that might go beyond her undoubtedly chaste natural shyness in explaining her extreme reluctance to disrobe.

Another question arises as to exactly what the girl's relationship is to the seated older woman smugly looking on. Once again uncertainty abounds and the imagination is left to run wild. Is she the girl's legal guardian, stepmother, privately employed schoolteacher under who's thrall the girl has somehow fallen or a governess charged with curbing a perceived over-exuberant and rebellious spirit and given cart blanch.

And what are we to make of the proprietorial manner in which that woman is apparently regarding her charge's intimate triangle? Is she considering the purchase of a chastity belt – is that what is coming next? Perhaps similar to that on show, yet the spring-steel waist-band locking in the center of the small of the back and to be worn over the top of that waist cinches thus negating tampering on more than one level at once. Then those breast, though youthfully-pert already, might yet benefit from even greater uplift – perhaps some sort of under-wired support lifting the girl's bust clear of her chest and thrusting those attributes generously forward as if offered up for display yet leaving the front uncovered, 'for hygienic reasons'. Is that woman considering one of the very many restrictive corsets or corseletes on offer for the girl to wear over the cincher? if so, might it not incorporate, for the sake of good deportment you understand, a suitably stiffened back-board to keep her back good and straight. Perhaps such a garment might incorporate an adjustable strap running across the shoulder blades and linking the broad shoulder-straps that might be tensioned to further perfect the girl's deportment. Of course the side effects of this - forcing a posture be adopted with shoulders pulled well back, chest thrust forward and buttocks invitingly rounded and thrust out to the rear – are unlikely to exactly detract from her charges attractiveness. Deportment might be paramount and thus exemplified by these measures, yet to the unenlightened , uninitiated, observer the conclusion is hard to avoid that the effect is to present a wanton offering up of everything that goes to represent the girl's femininity in a manner that it is only right that she should find most shameful.

But what else might that woman have in mind for her charge – for example, what of that pile of the girl's discarded clothing that lies crumpled in the foreground, surely she is not going to be allowed to redress and leave with such disheveled vestments over her new and undoubtedly expensive foundation wear?...

More ideas next time, but in the meantime – what do you think?