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.

Annoying, but Fixed!

As you know, an error message demanding a password has recently and annoyingly been popping up stating something to do with hot-linking to: www.wastedblogs.com at hotlinking images (including favicon.ico) from thumblogger.com

For the technically minded among you: I looked through the HTML code and could find absolutely no reference to wastedblog.com. I then searched the source code to all references to thumblogger.com and systematically removed all blogs links pointing to that server.

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The culprit or rather culprits (there were three!) turned out to be; schoolgirlspankingstories.thumblogger.com, schoolgirlspankingstories.thumblogger.com, lesbiantoons.thumblogger.com. I would like to suggest that if they want to play that particular game I would urge you to vote with your feet and boycott visiting these sites! I have never knowingly hot-linked to anyone else’s material in my life - however, it does seem possibly more to do with thumblogger itself than anything else.

On a more positive note: It did give me the opportunity to catch one or two broken links and the blogs - Tickle My Bum and Real tears have both been removed as it seems they have closed down.

I am still on the Isle of Wight but will be returning sometime today, so you should get a more interesting posting tomorrow or Friday, all being well.

Popping-Up Pain

In response to 'Orage' and the many others who have contacted me by email to flag-up the problems that have been occurring while I have been away. Many thanks, chaps. I am aware of the problem but only became so on Saturday, when I last had the opportunity to get on the Internet. I am still on the isle of Wight and will be so for a couple more days due to unforeseen circumstances (Translation: the sun has come out!) The pop-up appearing on this blog is a real pain, isn't it? This is not the first time this as happened and it is beyond me while anyone running a blog should put in place such a measure when surely all the listing of their site in my blog-roll is likely to do is increase their visitor frequency / business turnover (assuming some sort of commercial setup). As soon as I work out which link it refers to I will remove it - and from previous experience, that should fix the problem. This is a temporary post forced on me by this issue and will be removed / replaced as soon as I have dealt with the problem, which may have to wait for my return home due to the limited access to the Internet I have while on my travels. While I'm at it, my thanks go to Allen for providing the Blushes letters pages scans I have been featuring recently and my apologies for referring to him as Anon when in fact he is one of the few who does not employ the appellation of anonymous.