My spa trip with Cath the other morning also featured a short spell inside a rather lovely steam room. Guests sat on circular stone benches around the edge of the chamber, surrounding a central pool. Hot steam filled the room – so thick that one could hardly see a thing.

We were the only people inside at the time – and yes, the inevitable spanking did echo rather loudly from the high dome. But we were given to imagine a different scenario, taking place inside a similar room elsewhere.

The young woman had offended the village elders; she was summoned to see them at the bath-house one Sunday after church. A servant met her at the door, and commanded her to strip naked. He then opened the door of the hammam and pushed her inside.

As her eyes struggled to get used to the thick steam and the dim light, she would find herself taken roughly by the wrists and pulled over a towel-clad lap. The first of the elders would lift his hand high, and start to spank her with all his strength. She’d wriggle, scream, plead for mercy – but he would continue until he was satisfied that he had spanked her soundly, before ordering her to stand.

And then the next of the elders would take her over his knee, and repeat the spanking – and so on until the circle of the twelve wise men of the village had punished her in turn, without her ever seeing their faces, before she was evicted from the chamber to find the servant waiting with her dress.

[Cath had an even darker idea, involving a spy being birched until she revealed her secrets, with her head being held periodically under the waters of the central pool to weaken her resolve. But that's just damned perverted, if you ask me!]