Spanked at Home and Veralsis Spanking Showcase: Two New Affiliate Sites Added

I've just added two new affiliate sites to this blog. Spanked at Home and Veralsis Spanking Showcase. The latter has a massive collection of Artwork, over 42,ooo drawings, including Eric Stanton and other classics. The former appealed to me as its magazine-cover style samples bring on an attack of terminal nostalgia, being reminiscent of the good old days of seeing Roue and Janus covers on the local newsagent's top shelf.

The origin of the top left offering is obvious, so you can probably safely hazard a guess that the pic on the right comes from the aforementioned artwork site. If it works for me (if you get my drift) it mostly likely will for most of you out there - that's the way I look at it.

......

......

In addition, I have now extended the 'DropBox' albums to cover a few more of the deleted Picasaweb albums. The women's workwear and uniforms catalogue scans for: Hewat (an Edinburgh-based company) 1980s, Hewat 1960s and Garroulds of London. I have now removed all the links to the old defunct Picasaweb albums to save confusion. Longer term; I intend to create a series of standalone pages to hold the various collections I have stashed on my drives here, giving the blog - I hope - a look something more like a full-blown website than a conventional blog. I have to say, though, that I am a little pressed for time at present and the only reason I am messing around with the blog right now is that I have been away for the weekend and only got in a little while ago. As it is so late (early hours) it isn't worth getting in to any work on the book / books, but I am still a little too 'hyper' to sleep. Talking of affiliate sites:

.....

I just couldn't resist a quick trip to Bars and Stripes (it's that nurse /matron and cane thing) link in right hand sidebar. The two new sites I have added can be checked out by clicking on the relevant pic above or visiting the sidebar on right (as can the Dropbox albums). These affiliates will be the last commercial links I shall be adding as I want to avoid the trend, becoming increasingly prevalent, to fill up page-space almost entirely with banners and adverts; but at the same time, what with some sort of problem apparently afflicting Lulu sales, I need to do something to help fund my little hobby (I am mostly running on empty right now, financially speaking - but full of enthusiasm!!!). Tommorow will be entirely dedicated to editing the book - starting early!!! So bye for now - I'm off to bed.

Ambition and a Forum

Just a short note to say I have just added a forum address to the useful resources list in the sidebar that some of you may be interested in: SCHOOL CORPORAL PUNISHMENT on network54.

As always just click to visit or check out the right hand sidebar. It is listed prefaced with the word FORUM and shortly I shall group all forums together in the list in such a manner. Oh... and here's a little photo to whet your appetite (not sure where from, though - someone sent it to me via email. Thanks whoever you were). And by the way... While still finishing off the new book I have begun a little preliminary research for a prospective book on baldness and hair loss - male pattern baldness, that kind of thing and from a 'self-help' perspective. Opinions anyone? I am thinking about something following the 'Idiots Guides" model, with expert sections (the science stuff) and simplified 'straight to the point chunks.' Anyone out there know of a pre-existing publication around these lines? Go on: give me a hand with a little market research! See you later.

Those Magdalene Sisters - Again! (On My 'Tele, Too!)

As you know I said last time that I was going to paste up a short extract from the new book, and I will do - but next time.

There are good reasons (I think). (1) The piece I have been working on is still not ready in a form I would feel happy about sharing with you yet.

And (2): I became a little distracted. Partly this was due to a sojourn to the art exhibition currently running at the London Design Centre, Islington, yesterday (where they had, amongst other works on show and for sale, no less than four by LS Lowry, the asking price for one of which was an incredible £800,000 - just a little outside my league, Ha,ha!). But mostly, at least in as far as today has so far been concerned, it is to due to the showing last night on television of the wonderful, if depraved (but not for my taste), film ‘The Magdalene Sisters’– I almost had a coronary!! Of course I felt I had to mention it here, and of course I felt obliged to source a couple of suitable stills to go with the mention.

I have of course talked about this movie before. As you know it is based around the church-run homes that once existed in Ireland (up until not so long ago apparently) that were set up to house and control so-called ‘unruly’ girls - See the blog entry I posted on Tuesday, 23rd September 2008, entitled Corselletes, Corset Discipline & Institutional Hair and Fingernail Cutting (just click the title or use the blog archive search facility over in the right-hand sidebar).

Anyway, one thing led to another and while searching for a few stills from said film I stumbled across ‘The Encyclopedia of Women in Prison Films’(see right-hand sidebar under the heading ‘Useful Resources’ for a link to the homepage or click the site name). This site, which describes itself as “a work in progress attempting to catalogue and review every WIP film ever made”, does indeed host a clip from the aforementioned film. One of the best sections my opinion; the part where the inmates, having been made to strip naked, are humiliated by the Mother Superior who amongst other things has them compare breast sizes and ‘hairiness down below’ and so on - reducing one completely to tears. (See pictured top left). Unfortunately the clip on this particular site is in French, which is a bit of a pain for me personally be a typically ignorant Brit when it comes to languages, but I'm sure it'll be fine for many visitors to this blog to get a flavour of the movie.

Another clip I came across on the same site that I found worth viewing - though it has nothing to do with The Magdalene Sisters and appears to be silent for some reason - was called ‘Stuck’ (click on the film name and look on the bottom right-hand of the page when you arrive - or see clip embedded here). This one is a lovely clip of young women - one delightfully bashful - stripping out of their prison uniforms - which appears to consist of a button-through nylon overall or dress (perfect as a basis for a prison uniform) - under the stern watchful eye of wardress in what appears to be a prison block shower room. To view clip click on the 'play symbol' below.


Going back to the Magdalene sisters again for a moment, and that scene mentioned above in particular I think they miss out on a trick or two if this sort of treatment only occurs once in a girl's experience. In the type of institution I envisage, that form of belittling and humiliating treatment would be repeated on multiple occasions. On subsequent occasions - which I picture as being in a more formal, structured frame, almost along the lines of the series of ‘group therapy’ sessions and perhaps lead by a woman trained in psychology, and perhaps one specialising in the psychology of shame - I imagine it could have been taken a step further, with the girls no longer allowed to just stand passively while comments are fired at them but rather obliged to participate, discussing and describing their own breasts in relation to those others around them. Any sign of pride, a girl perhaps misguidedly flaunting her attributes under the misconception that she is somehow better than the rest, would be dealt with by a suitably scathing and confidence-undermining comment from the psychologist, pointing out her shortcomings in no uncertain terms. Similarly, after the various comments issued regarding the relative level of ‘hairiness down below’ displayed by the various girls while in line - with the Mother Superior saying at one point, as I recall “you've got more there down below then you have on your head, a girl, but I think so-and-so wins out in that department” (or words to that effect, I can't remember the name of the girl) - the next step would be an appointment with the institution's nurse or matron and the very carefully carried out and closely scrutinised close razor-shaving of their more intimate charms. On subsequent occasions, then, those comments could be made far more focused and even more intimate, perhaps with girls lined up with hands-on head over a mirrored floor or seated in a circle on steel-framed plastic chairs and a hand mirror then passed around. I'm sure you get the idea.

A couple of Blogs for You to Visit

Hi there!

Just a quick note to say that I have taken a little time out from struggling with the new book this evening to peruse a couple of blogs that I just can’t believe I’ve overlooked in the past. ‘SEXUELLE’, the creation of one Elizabeth Forster, is just chock full with some of the most erotic spanking orientated erotica I have ever come across on a blog – with an emphasis on erotic; just wonderful!. I went through page after page and just couldn’t get away – I have had a hell of a job just deciding which pics to add to my collection. Click on either picture to visit (they both came from there) or look for link in the blog list in the right-hand sidebar. Actually I really love the top left: the hair bondage thing – very reminiscent of the writing of Victor Bruno, don’t you think?

.....

‘Spanking w necie’ is another good 'un. Not sure what language it is in but there are a lot of spanking pics I have not seen before and a hell of a lot of blog links to explore. Click on blog name to link or see blog list – blah, blah, blah.

Next entry will hopefully be a shard from the new book.

And now… Back to the writing (Well International indoor bowls first on TV, the writing. Maybe a bit of sleep as well?)– enjoy!

Reader's Letters Scans Search Advice

Hi peeeps! Still hard at it here, finishing off the new book, but have also put aside a little time here and there to keep an eye on the blogI. One thing I have noted, checking through the visitor log of late, is that a number of folk are presently linking in from a bulletin board someplace looking specifically for spanking magazine reader's letters page scans. As many of you regulars will know, I have posted quite a few over time from 'Janus' and the Blushes / Whispers magazine stable, some those scanned by 'yours truly', some contributed by Alan (I hope – I have a terrible memory for names). Now, I have not always been as consistent as I might have with my use of 'tags', using insiprations (in error, obviously), inspiration, inspirational letters, Inspirations and letters pages as tags in various combinations. To help those searching for letters pages scans I carried out a little experimentation using the search window facility (look over there in the right-hand side bar). Where it says 'search tis blog' simply type in 'letters' (minus the apostrophes of course!) – this search-term was found to produce the best results – you can always then click on any of the tags that come up with the results to find related postings.

Talking of links: Quite a few folk are still attempting to follow the 'album' links in the sidebar. These all link to Picasaweb albums but as I said last time; Picasaweb have taken down all my albums. I am slowly replacing these with links to 'Dropbox' albums and at present have created 'Dropbox' albums containing spanking artwork from Thorn / Hobbs and women's workwear / uniform catalog scans from Garoulds of London and Hewett 1980s and 1960s (of these only the link to the Thorn / Hobbs artwork album is actually in place at present). There may yet be issues with 'dropbox' – I found Thorn / Hobbs artwork album to have somehow been deleted when I visited yesterday (now reinstated) – but we'll see how it goes. If necessary once the new book is completed I'll create a series of standalone pages to hold the various collections that once resided on Picasaweb – and more besides! Meanwhile, to save further confusion / disappointment, later today I am going to delete all the old Picasaweb links from the sidebar – good riddance; there's nothing worse / more irritating than a broken link.

Another Belated Greeting

A Happy new year to all, before I forget!!! You have probably read of my internet connection difficulties over the Christmas period. Well unfortunately it continued, albeit in a different guise, into the new year.

Although I didn't touch a drop over what would conventionally be considered the xmas period per se, I had determined beforehand that I would spend a couple of days in the pub upon my return to London and traditionally I always meet up with my mother - and sometimes another couple of family members, though not this year - in a suitably agreeable hostelry or alehouse. This year, though, I also chose to cerebrate Twelfth night and the Twelfth day following. Consequently I was to be found in one of the two local branches of Wetherspoons over the last few days. As always, on each tavern visit I went armed with my trusty netbook - the intention being to work on the new book, deal with emails and perhaps create the odd blog update to boot!

The lack of any recent blog activity can be taken as evidence that all did not go to plan in that direction. Both my local pub branches proved to be suffering different router problems. A third establishment I tried, though it did have a working WiFi connection - of sorts – it was running so slow that it was only really feasible to send out a few emails before the battery in my computer started to fail: and there was nowhere to plug in the power supply either!!!

Then, over the weekend I went to stay at the 'significant other's' place. And guess what... Her phone line promptly went down (and still is down) and now we are embroiled in heated discussions with the phone company (BT) as to which part of the phone line they are actually responsible for and which proportion is up to us to sort out for ourselves. I am reasonably confident that I have proved the fault to be outside of the house, which was all that was necessary previously – but not any more it seems. Things are far more complex these days.

I have been doing a little work on one of the files still waiting to be incorporated into the book. That alone extends to around 62 pages, needs a little completion and major rearrangement / editing to make sense, so still a lot to be done there. In addition I am going to have to recreate all my Picasaweb albums in a different form, as I said last time. What I still can't quite grasp is why they also objected to the various women's workwear / uniform catalog scan albums, which surely were quite harmless. I have no way of gauging how popular those particular albums actually were and whether it will be worth re-uploading them elsewhere; so please let me know if you found them of interest and would appreciate more. What ever a decide, I shall leave the links listed in the sidebar until I replace each, as a guide to myself.

Meanwhile some kind soul has chosen to slag off volume 2 on one of the ebook sites with a vitriolic attack culminating in the statement that there is "nothing nice written anywhere between its pages" or some such thing - no shit Sherlock!!! It's not supposed to be 'nice' in just the same way that the 'Saw' film franchise is not supposed to be 'nice'. What gets me, though, is that the site in question includes a lengthy extract featuring one of the more graphic punishment scenes from the book - there aren't many and I tend to deliberately steer clear of the repetitive and ever more brutal beating type of thing written elsewhere by the likes of Victor Bruno (as much as I admire his work and have to admit to owing much inspiration to his writing) et al!!!

Got to go now - I'm in a coffee house and I hate what I would describe as 'coffee house music'; incessantly repetitive and intrusive south American jungle-tango-jazz shit... Sorry but I hate it and once again they have succeeded in driving me out after only one coffee. But not before searching out some nice inspiring art work, this one being particularly relevant to the storyline – see what you think.

Best wishes from a wet and windy and grubby litter-strewn North London where this music is now driving me to distraction.,, AAAAARRRRGH!!!!!

A Belated Festive Greeting From England (not the UK - What's United About It?) What's 'United About Anything Anyway?'

Hi my little festive chums (we have 'festive' cheer here nowadays in preference to the apparently potentially offensive Chr----- nomenclature... note to self: New year's resolution - not to get upset by 'man-dresses', the upside down bramble-beard shaved headed look and the PC brigade that kowtow to them).

Talking of the latter, PicasaWeb chose Chr--------- day to inform me that they are permanently removing all of my albums and shutting down my account as 'despite previous notifications' and 'further complaint' I had neglected to remove offensive material from my albums. Well Pollocks to em: last time I was 'notified' it was to say they had removed the aforementioned 'offensive material' from my albums, and lo and behold certain 'material' – notably the artwork of Thorn / Hobbs – had been removed. Thus I took no further action, believing all else to have passed and survived their scrutiny.

Fear not, though, for as the case of some with some of the other material they have removed in the past I shall resurrect these folders, albums and files in their entirety as I did with the work of Hobs / Thorn – keep watching the sidebar for new links / demise of the old Picasaweb links.

When you come to think of it, what could have been so offensive about the covers of old magazines that once sat on newsagent shelves let alone women's workwear catalogs that once occupied the mainstream in any case. I guess what I am saying is: why delete such innocuous material in the first place? Or is it the truth that no one ever bothers to check and any allegation will do?. More likely it is the usual fear that someone - anyone, no matter how minority their point of view – shall be 'offended': well should we kowtow to every nutter on the planet – or embrace freedom?

Now as for the belated Christmas (oh no! I've said it) greeting: I neglected to take an USB cable with me to the hotel – and the wireless link cost money. So what can I say: I'm having a beer or two today on the proceeds of that saving!!!

On another lay: here are a couple of early renditions of the cover for the new volume – along with the first two for comparison –

though I doubt I'll use either in their present form as I'd like to keep to the series theme a little more and also for legal reasons (both are for artwork layout guidance only). Comments / criticisms are, as always, are welcomed.