Toilet-Seat Spanking Humiliation, A Couple of Blogs to Explore and Some PicasaWeb Album Additions

You are probably wondering where I’ve been to again, it being close to a week since my last update. Well I had planned one for last Friday or Saturday but the best laid plans… well, more about that later, for those that are interested (see below). Harking back to that ‘Toilet Seats and Domestic Discipline’ thing I wrote up on Sunday 21st November, I remembered seeing a really nice suitable photo set somewhere out there in Web-Land once, featuring the absolutely edible Rosaleen young (I think – though I might be wrong). I think it realy sums up the posibilities inherent in the situation being discussed - think institutional-style discipline intorduced in the home environment. So on Friday I did a little trawling around and here it is (left). Of course while out hunting, as is often the case, I got sidetracked by a couple of interesting blogs.

The first isn’t actual strictly speaking a Blog at all as such, other than in name, as I can’t link to it via my blog listings and so you can find it listed under ‘Useful Resources’ in the right-hand sidebar or click on its name here (highlighted in blue). Entitled; Michael Masterson’s The Spanking Blog it is a spanking photo studio site with loads of free spanking galleries for you to investigate (I didn’t have time myself on my visit – but I’m going back later). The other I came across was Spanking Porn-blog which can be found in the sidebar blog listing in the conventional manner. You can also go see it for yourself directly from here, as above.

The other two pics are just gratuitous, yet stimulating, examples of spanking art I came across while reorganizing my files recently – I hope I haven’t posted them before; my apologies if I have. The first (right) is by ‘Walldo’, the other I don’t know – perhaps someone out there can tell me as I’d like to see some more!

Yesterday I got stuck working away from home, so could work on the book but had no WiFi access for the day. Today I’m hard at it once again and even I hope to do a little prelim work on the design of the book cover later – something that excites me greatly!

I was actually quite industrious yesterday – despite being away from home - and very nearly finished the last chapter of the new book, which I have now put in place in book form (although I shall have to do a little more to it shortly, when I finish this). Despite this and despite returning home late (near midnight) I managed to update my PicasaWeb albums (right-hand sidebar) adding more scanned catalogue pics to the 1960s – 1970s Alexandra workwear album and creating a whole new album entitled Prison Uniforms that concentrates on prison uniform dresses. The problem regarding PicasaWeb deleting certain spanking art folders from my assemblage some time ago – notably the work of Hobbs / Thorn I am working on circumventing by way of creating a public DropBox folder that I shall then post a link to here. If that works, and within the limitations of the storage space available, I shall create folders of all sorts of scanned and / or downloaded stuff that has inspired and fired me up over the years for you to explore and that I have archived.

It's bloody snowing here now, freezing - I thought global warming was supposed to take care of all that. The good news is that it helps put me off going to the pub for a while. I'm saving that up for closer to Christmas. Not Christmas itself, though, as my other half doesn't drink much and so I try to abstain and instead get my kicks by going for food that I would not ordinarily allow myself. We are going to be off to a nice (I hope) hotel in Ascot, where the famous Royal Ascot horse race course is and not far from Windsor and the Thames; might even try a little fishing on Boxing Day.

Or a more negative note: I have a chest infection that has gone on for weeks and that seems to gradually ease off only to worsen again after each visit to the gym. The upside (I suppose) is that, what with the inclement weather and my hacking cough, I am confined to the home today and so after a brief blog update will be hopefully getting a lot done towards getting this book thing finished.

On the subject of the blog: I went away for the weekend to the ‘Other Half's’ place - as always - and although it would be difficult to do much towards finishing the book while there I nevertheless intended to get a blog update posted. Accordingly I took all source materials I would need with me on a data stick.

I arrived to find a hysterical woman journalist / lecturer (namely 'The Other Half') and a computer that had fallen over and that now displayed unblinkingly the dreaded Windows blue screen, a hole batch of hexadecimal memory addresses and error codes and the information that it had ''performed a dump - mmm, nice! (a little too much information there, on all sorts of levels - taking a 'dump' can have a whole different meaning here in London). She had tried to transfer some work she had completed onto a data stick... and down it had gone - just like that. Further investigation showed the hard drive to be so full as to barely allow Windows to operate (she only has 512 Mb of RAM). I used the Windows disk cleanup utility, compressed some files and off it went again... only to fail to download and install a Windows update a few hours later. The cause? Insufficient disk space - the free space was down to a couple of hundred megabytes again. Interestingly, thinking back I seemed to recall that earlier in the year when last I had checked there had been about 15 Gb of free space on that drive, and she only deals in text , a few still pics and PowerPoint presentations, things like that and nothing flash either. Obviously I suspected a virus of some flavour. I trawled through the hard drive looking for some overly enormous usage some place - and found it! Symantic Norton antivirus: in the programs, common, directory a directory labeled Symantic was 15Gb in size! Closer inspection showed the culprit to be the virus signatures folder which was bulging at the seams with 12.8 Gb of signatures, temp files and the rest.

To cut a long story short; the thing seemed unstoppable. I would tell it to empty its temp cache, and it would - only to fill it up again almost immediately. I reduced the disc space allowed for Norton's temp files, but to no avail. Then, while still investigating the problem and having again freed up disc space by compressing old files, Norton proudly announced that it was trying to update and would I kindly make more disk space available to it on the hard drive as it was having a little difficulty (or words ti that effect)... Ahhhh! Poor thing!

That was it: I knew then it had to die... Die!... DIE!!!! ARRRGH! Not so easy to kill off though - it is an antivirus program after all! I had first to stop it loading on start up it turned out. So off I went to the registry and pulled out its plug. Then it was back to the Windows Add / Remove utility, a gun to its head BANG it was dispatched.

I'd always hated Norton, right from the start. It took up too much memory and would slow her ancient (2002) computer to a snail's pace. To be honest, though; originally her machine had run quite happily with 256 Mb RAM - even with Norton - until she'd had added the latest version of Norton, a few years back. Then it had ground practically to a standstill and a little investigation soon showed that Norton itself was taking up 128 Mb for its own use. Thus I upped the memory to 512 Mb for her (she didn't want to spend much - she's of Scottish ancestry; I'm sure you understand. Ha! Ha! No offence meant to any of you from the other side of The Wall, you must understand – that of Hadrian's constructing of course). I have now replaced Norton with Avast, which is the antivirus I run here, cleaned up the registry and optimized Windows - and of course defragged the hard drive (which is a tale in of itself - never bother with the Windows XP defragmenter tool is my advice; it's crap, deeply crap!). Now her antique machine is razor sharp (for its vintage). Of course it lacks the punch of my brace of 10,000 RPM Raptors configured in RAID 0 (though strictly speaking that shouldn't be called RAID at all as neither drive is redundant - far from it). Bye for now!

The New Book - A Short Clip

Hi Folks! Bright and sunny today (but cold-ish)... so I am bright and sunny - hurrah! I have been making good progress filling in the gaps and reorganising the story flow of the new book (I've still not got a sensible title though!). I thought you might like a short clip, so here we go. The whole thing will need proofreading at some stage so there may well be typos, but see if it whets your appetite - or not (don't be shy!).

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An Extract

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Even with the soft vinyl inner layer of the hospital-issue pyjama bottoms, and the close-fitting plastic incontinence underpants she had on beneath, the thin flannelette did little to ameliorate the discomfort of the hard wooden seat – already her buttocks were going numb, which ironically only served to make the griddle pattern of thin cane wheals crisscrossing her bottom throb all the more. No longer in contact with the ground, the naked soles of her feet now throbbed too, in the simple rhythm of her pulse. It was another irony; whilst her feet bore her weight, the aftermath of the doctor’s martinet consisted of little more than a fiery, overall burning sensation. Once seated, with her legs swept back beneath the chair and her hobbled ankles fastened by way of their leather restraint cuffs to two short lengths of chain that hung down from beneath the seat, it felt as if dozens of red-hot hooks were embedded in the undersides of her feet and were tugging rhythmically downwards in unison. Taken together these reminiscences of the cane and of the martinet were what had been responsible for the girl cutting herself off in mid-flow and also for the sudden contrite, apologetic retraction that had so quickly followed.
It was humiliating, but it was better than suffering a repeat performance. Besides, it was fear of humiliation, in a manner of speaking, that had earned her the six cuts of the cane across her bare behind and the twelve slashes of the multi-tongued martinet across the sole of each foot in the first place. Indeed, in a way the retribution, correction - call it what you will - had not been entirely unrelated to her tirade; it never was. The very best way to ensure receiving the attention of the doctor's supple length of rattan was to speak of being a volunteer behavioural research subject or to protest against the validity of any part of the doctor's diagnosis. But that hadn't been the cause on this occasion, not directly at any rate.
The doctor was fond of setting impositions to fill her time when confined to the tiny anteroom that had now become her home - to keep her mind active, the doctor said. In some ways she almost felt as though she should be grateful, after all, there was no window and once the heavy, padded, outer door had been shut, closing off the doctor's office from the prison-cell-like floor-to-ceiling hinged array of vertical steel bars that kept her secure, the silence was very nearly perfect. In fact the only thing that tarnished that perfection was the rushing-hiss of white noise - and that, she knew, was only there to make absolutely certain that her isolation was complete. Even that, though, was not entirely the truth; there were times, if she had been perhaps particularly stubborn, when that background mush would be accompanied by an insistent and repetitive beeping. It was not particularly loud, just an irritating little bleep that would constantly interrupt a her train of thought and that seemed to come at irregular intervals like a sort of modern electronic take on the Chinese water torture until she would find herself incapable of concentrating on anything other than trying to predict the next bleep.
On this occasion she had been set the imposition of writing an essay; 'How I Benefit from Being Kept in Long-term Residential Psychiatric Care '. But how was she supposed to write something like that, how could she? And then there was that adjective included in the title - 'Long-term' - that was surely there purely to increase her feeling of hopelessness. And it worked - she had put pen to paper, carefully copied out the title in the copperplate hand that was always demanded, then she had simply sat staring at it while weeping uncontrollably until the time allocated had run out.
Staring at her reflection in the mirror, at least one thing the doctor had just said rang true to the girl, the part about her looking like a prison-camp waif. The double chin was anything but waiflike, and the pyjamas she was dressed in were definitely not quite as baggy as they had once been - but with their broad green and white stripes and soulless, shapeless design, what else did they look like other than a prison-camp uniform? Crestfallen, she looked away, tears welling.

Of Toilet Seats and Domestic Discipline

Following my last posting 'Summertime75' posted the comment that: “Having just seen the illustration at the top of the page I immediately thought of Lavinia, talk about an extreme make over ”.

Well, that was exactly the impact it had on me when first I came across that particular illustration. I thought; “Hhmm, how cruel, yet how subtle”. As you can imagine the very last thing that popped into my mind was any connection with any notion of 'forced feeding' – not my 'bag' at all, that. No,no; I immediately conceived of something far, far subtler than that. After all, once in an institutional situation – no matter under what pretext – all sorts of possibilities open up. All sorts of methods of coercion and manipulation may be brought into play – the outcome, most dispiriting for any young lady with aspirations to becoming a dancer, actress or catwalk model! Of course there are also certain approaches that may be just as applicable within the domestic environment where the discipline of a pretentious, sullenly pouting young thing is paramount. I can say no more without giving too much away.

Talking of the domestic environment: the home can very soon, under the right circumstances and guidance, become worlds away from the usual interpretation of that term 'domestic' as the short piece written by an anonymous contributer and appended to my last update illustrates. Here I am talking about the piece dealing with his view of a 'Teenage Trollops Mentoring Program'. Although I am not generaly fond of the apparent involvement of officialdom, as alluded to by the visit of the police representative - preferring instead to conceive of situations beyond the potential scope of public or official scrutiny – I applaud the scenario he conceives of, if it might be achieved through some more private means. The only part I disliked was the section wherein he envisages a toilet seat being “embedded all round with sharp tacks and broken glass”. While I am all for it (the seat, that is) being fixed firmly in place, imagine - if you will - two narrow concentric rings of an electrically-conductive material embedded withing the plastic of the seat and carrying an electric charge between them capable of delivering a harmless yet stinging, jolting electric shock.

Now, I have to say many, many thanks to all those that left messages of support on my last update or that emailed me with encouragement. I have to say the response really surprised me and was incredibly heartwarming. Particularly sobering have been the messages I have received in my email inbox from those others of you out there in similar circumstances sharing your experiences. A problem shared is a problem halved, someone once said (probably) and it helps tremendously to be reminded that I am not alone in my lower moments; it's that sense of community.

'Imreadonly' made the point that depression can be a really tough disease to fight!” Ain't that the truth! It can also be rather difficult and strange to understand. For example; Friday was particularly bright, cheerful and sunny here in London, with a bright blue sky. I was up in front of the computer typing away within minutes – almost - of opening my eyes and glimpsing the shafts of sunlight filtering past the curtains and I got a whole chapter rounded out and placed within the book per se (the whole thing pretty much exists now but is fragmented). Saturday, although overcast, was filled with various chores which filled the time and got me through. Today is overcast too, very dull and nondescript, but the knowledge of having made a significant step forward towards publication of the new book on Friday seems enough to have motivated me to create this update. Added to the latter is the feeling that any progress I might make tomorrow will likely hinge on my achievements of today, even such a modest posting as this – hardily of any creative merit. So I guess what I am saying is that today's posting, though not saying much, is actually quite important in terms of getting the new work finished – does that make any sense.

While I have been writing this 'Desert Island Disks' has just started on the BBC featuring Alice Cooper, which I have to say has brought a smile to my face – quite surreal, really. But I guess to appreciate this you need to be familiar with that program and its long history. Bye for now!

An Open Letter and a Blushes Reader's Letters Page Scan

As you will have read, I ended up staying on the IOW longer than anticipated. What I was a little loath to admit – and a little in two minds about sharing with you all - was that this was largely as a result of becoming… sort of locked in to a drinking binge which then continued on having eventually reached London. Having written to my collaborating illustrator in the ‘States’ with a few words of explanation – having all but lost contact due to my lack of feedback to him – I gave a second thought to this reticence, coming to the conclusion that you all deserve an explanation as to my increasing erratically-timed postings to this blog; not to mention the delays occurring to the production of the new volume. Today is only my 4th ‘dry’ day – and it still feels bloody awful. I get bouts of very deep depression in any case, but following such an extended binge (relatively rare, thankfully) it can get so, so much worse.

It wouldn't have been so bad if my (usually) trusty netbook computer had been working correctly. Usually when partaking of a few beers my mood is elevated, my imagination and enthusiasm are stimulated and I often get a lot of useful writing completed. But with the computer playing up, added to the ‘downer’ that comes after such a binge I have this overwhelming sense of remorse, having wasted so much time. Yes, I could have switched to pen and paper, which is how the first two books started out life, but to tell the truth, for a while, recently, I seem to have exhausted pretty much all my reserves of enthusiasm. I think this is partly due to the way that sorting out the story-flow of the new book – bearing in mind that the work now represents well over a year of writing, on and off - seems to have become such an insurmountable task. It has become a real ‘monster’ and undoubtedly, in hindsight, overambitious; with the result that at present it exists as a series of disjointed vignettes (if exciting vignettes, I guess – though to be honest all the focus required as led to my becoming more than a little jaded).

Well, here I am, full of ant-depressants. The herbal remedy, St Johns Wort, usually works for me whereas the SSRI type things the doctors often prescribe - Prozac and the ilk - don't do much for me. So I am on buckets of the stuff and forcing myself down the gym, as that often helps. To be honest it is always a little like this at this time of the year with the shortening hours of daylight – just not usually this bad.

At this stage it all seems so overwhelming; there seems so much left to do. If I can get going at all, I would really want to get at least the written version up and published in some form by xmas. If I can do that, then I think I’ll be able to keep going a little longer and put a couple of months aside to complete the illustrated version – but no more than that. I think that come February or thereabouts I'll want to wash my hands of the whole thing, including the blog (although I might change the direction of the blog, or start a new one) - it just doesn't do anything for me anymore. For now it is all about getting that spark ignited again. What it comes down to is that writing can be such an insular and lonely task (though the blog helps), especially when the subject matter makes it difficult to discuss it with those around me. It comes down to many hours sitting alone. And it is such a thankless task with little financial gain to be had; the commercial take-up of this genre of literature seems somewhat limited and, through Lulu at least, often days go by between sales; it is all dribs and drabs. But then again, if I don’t finish it… what happens to all those piles of part-written stuff I have built up over the past fourteen months or so?

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Finally: I have dug out this Blushes Reader’s Letters page (see above right) scanned and sent in by Allan. Thank god (thank Allan, anyway!) I still have a stockpile of these to provide a little light relief – I have little drive to get around to scanning any more of my own collection at the moment. It's that ever-popular 'adoptee' thing again! I am unsure of the origin of the illustration at the top of the page (something I blundered across a time ago on the webb somewhere) and I know nothing of the original storyline behind it. The latter makes it all the more intriguing, though, and although fat girls are not my thing it did at least inspire one particularly devilish idea - now woven itnto the new book's storyline. I just hope someone gets to read it some day. See y’all next time.

November Rain and Hovercraft Reminiscences

Hi Orage and others (vie email), thanks for your comments as regards hovercraft routes. Gibraltar to Tangier? could be a little rough, that one!

Here in the UK there used to be a Hover ferry running between Pegwell Bay (Just outside Ramsgate on the Southeast Kent coast) and Calais, France. Big buggers they were, with four fans or propellers - one at each corner. The could carry cars, coaches and the like. I went on one as part of a school trip to Belgium, along with the coach we were traveling on - it was that sort of scale.

That was back in 1970 and the hovercraft was a SRN4 (SRN = Saunders-Roe Nautical 4). The old Isle of Wight passenger craft (when I went on one as a kid) were single fan driven SRN6s. It is interesting to note that the modern incarnation utilizes a pair of ducted fans as do the military versions.

The SRN4 cross-Chanel Hover ferries, though, were a sight to behold - the shear scale of the things! I traveled across to France on them on several occasions when I lived in Ramsgate and later Broadstairs. Yes they were quick - but they sure weren't for the faint of heart! On a calm day they were amazingly quick and equally smooth. Provide a change of tide, a little wind and a bit of a swell and... Let's just say that if you like roller coasters and similar fairground thrills you'd love it! It is telling that a sick-bag was provided, tucked within easy reach in a pouch in the back of the seat in front. At times a crossing could be likened to being a little like sitting in with a particularly deluded would-be rally driver on a switchback dirt track - and pissed. The thing would be surging along, then suddenly come to a near dead stop before then surging ahead with prodigious acceleration - pressing the passenger back in his or her seat - before again treating the unwary and unintentional thrill-seeker to a nauseatingly rapid deceleration that threatened to throw one's stomach contents all over the chap (or chap-ess) in front. I kid you not; I have a good set of 'sea legs' and once owned (late 1970s) a two-seater deep-V hulled boat capable of a solid 80 MPH on aa calm day at sea (don't know - nor care what that is in KPH; I'm in that sort of belligerent mood) but I reached for that paper haven more than once on one trip. Actually, that recollection brings to mind a good analogy - it was like being in a powerboat... with brakes!

By the way – it is absolutely peeing down here in London; currently at Highbury Corner in Weatherspoons pub (The White Swan – sounds picturesque, but isn't) where there is a beer festival ongoing (up until this coming weekend)and which had resigned myself to missing. hope to be getting on with a little writing shortly and have just bought a new tele' in a moment of madness.

Sorry to hear that some of you are having problems reading the Blushes reader's letters scans I recently posted. It is possible (likely even) that I over-did the resizing process I put them through in order to save web hosting space and upload time. Let me know if the problems are insurmountable and I'll repost as necessary - Ta!

Hovering Home and More spanking Letters from Blushes

Sorry to have been away for so long. I had hoped to have made a couple of worthwhile full-sized postings from the Isle of Wight (IOW) (where, as you may have gathered I lingered somewhat longer than originally intended). But free WiFi access proved as rare as hen's teeth, and to cap it all the netbook developed a fault whereby the screen turned purple, making critical appraisal of images impossible even if it was still possible to write to some degree (a bit of a strain on the old 'peepers' though!). I have just this minute arrived back in 'The Smoke' (London) via an eclectic mix of transportation. Eclectic? you may ask – well, for example, how many out there have ever seen one of these things in the flesh? (see photo). Yes it is a hovercraft and I doubt there are many hovercraft routes still active in the world – this one runs between Ryde on the northeast end of the IOW and Southsea on the UK mainland south coast (just outside Portsmouth, where HMS Victory lives).

Quite a few have emailed me while I have been away to say how much they have enjoyed the Blushes letters posts sent in by Allan. I find them great for triggering off new ideas when things are getting stale on the writing front. And at times such as these – during which I have had little free time available, due to a mixture of traveling, writing and assorted domestic conflicts (the majority of which revolve around the time I spend writing – the rest around the time spent pubbing) – they provide a good source of content, taking the strain off yours truly. So here are a couple more to be getting on with (click to enlarge / view). See you'all later... Garth.

Thumblogger Problems - Continued

Yes, as you may have noticed; no sooner did post a report that I'd fixed the pop-up problem (only this morning) then it recurred! I removed another Thumblogger blog from my blog link list earlier this afternoon and for a while the problem ceased... then it started up yet again!!! Arrrgh!!!! This is waisting so much time! I have now removed all links to Thumblogger hosted sites - sod 'em!!! I don't know what these Thumblogger types are up to and whether it is the fault of the individual blog authors or the Thumblogger host but from now on they can go without any traffic coming from my site - I for one will not be hosting links to any of their blogs in future. Actually, I was looking back through my blog archive a little earlier and realized I have run into this problem once before, when I posted up a link to Ladywriter on Sensualwriter (I think it was) again hosted by Thumblogger. The weird thing is that some of the links I have had to delete have been in situ on my blog link list for quite some time without problems.