The Spanking Writers

I was surfing book reviews, and I happened upon an interesting blurb for “Fool”, a novel by Christopher Moore. Apparently, it is -

a retelling of Shakespeare’s King Lear from the point of view of the Fool, and it entailed much shagging, spanking, wanking, murder and, horror, several split infinitives “It was quite bawdy,” Moore understates.

Really? That bawdy? It may seem imprudent to put a book on your “to buy” list just because it’s supposed to be a quite bawdy, but the Fool has always been one of my favourite Shakespearean characters, so I can pretend I actually want to read the book for its theme, and not just for the promise of much spanking.

Though who am I kidding?

You know how it is: you wait ages for an interesting statue, and then two come along at once…

I’ve recent been reading Jeremy Paxman’s fascinating volume on “The Victorians”. Having long been fascinated by the Great Exhibition of 1851, I was curious to find this little paragraph, describing an item that hadn’t featured in the previous books I’ve devoured on the subject, namely:

a presentation of the American sculpture Hiram Powers’ Greek Slave* (1844), [which] caused a sensation. The sculpture… depicts a Greek maiden who has been captured by the Turks and forced to stand naked in a slave market. The statue was secreted in a curtained alcove but placed on a stand that could be rotated discreetly by gentlemen in order to reveal her delightful posterior.

The web is a wonderful thing, for as well as Wikipedia’s tantalising description (“the title suggests that she is some sort of captive, and is on display for sale as a sexual object in an unknown market”), there’s an illustration of the sculpture in the Crystal Palace itself:

This surely demands a closer look, so let’s peek behind the curtain of Victorian discretion:

And now let us reach for that legendary rotating stand:

Oh yes. Oh very yes. As one academic essay comments, “The treatment of the back especially, is one of the happiest efforts in modern sculpture.”

Apparently the original work lives in Raby Castle – not very far from where Haron and I lived for seven years – although there are copies dotted all across the States. I think we need to take a trip back up north, and contemplate how the young lady might have been punished by her new master… or in the harem, even.

One further online reference to the sculpture lists it with a number of other artworks classified as “Women as helpless, chained (and usually naked) victims”. This is a genre that, I feel, deserves further investigation…

*I typed that as ‘Geek Slave’ the first time around. That sounds intriguing, too!

We wandered into our local branch of Past Times last weekend, curious to see what items the store was offering that might evoke nostalgic feelings for British traditions from days gone by. A traditional white cotton nightshirt just had to be bought – perfect for a scene in which a girl is sent to bed early, or called into her guardian’s study late at night for a discussion regarding her behaviour.

And then there was this:

Why, I wondered aloud, were they selling fairies in bondage? The poor little thing looked quite distraught, with her ankles and wrists bound tight. Imprisoned, perhaps – a whipping sure to follow. It was only then that we realised that the chains were actually designed to hang up the piece, and that the apparently ultra-kinky item was in fact entirely vanilla…

The Times gave me a good giggle a couple of days ago by publishing the following opinion piece:

There’s a line in the long Wikipedia entry for Eton College that, more than anything else, epitomises the peculiarity of the institution. Under the section on “corporal punishment”, which was apparently such a fixation at the school that in the 16th century Friday was set aside as “flogging day”, it reads: “Beating was phased out in 1983.”

Huh? Why did it have to be phased out? Surely, if you’ve decided violence against children is a bad thing, then you get rid of it in one go? And how did this phasing out work? Was the a period in the Eighties when some boys were beaten while others weren’t? Or perhaps children were, over the course of a few months, flogged with decreasing viciousness, until the activity finally died out? Weird.

I really like the idea of the Headmaster, sour-faced, announcing in assembly one day: “Starting today, the school is forbidden to use corporal punishment on scholarship pupils. Each of you must appoint a proxy, who will be punished in your stead whenever you deserve a thrashing.”

What? That’s as good a method of phasing out canings as any suggested in the paper…

The Times entertained me over the weekend by printing the following item:

A 100-year-old Polynesian paddle that was used as a household ornament has sold at auction for a record £220,000.

Bidding for the ceremonial paddle, which comes from Easter Island and is known as a rapa, started at only £3,000, but buyers in London and Brussels sent its value rocketing past £200,000.

A ceremonial paddle! From Easter Island! They had really kinky lives on the Easter Island, let me tell you. Abel and I have lots of paddles, but none of them are ceremonial. I feel there’s something missing from my life now.

How would you go about a paddling ceremony? I’d like to see one, at least, or preferably participate.

(Thanks, Jessica, for noticing this and telling me.)

I was a queen of a small counrty in my dream last night. The king, my husband, was generally useless, and left all the reigning and ruling stuff to me.

I gather that most of the time I did a good job, but the episode I dreamed about was this surreal meeting of my government, where the prime minister had taken an issue with something I had said or done. Apparently, in such instances it was traditional that the head of the armed forces took me away to a private room and spanked me over his knee. (I don’t think it was the law. It was very much something my government and I had worked out between ourselves.”

Anyway, this rather dashing officer in a scarlet uniform with multiple gold braids, walked with my to a private office. He was clinking with medals, or maybe it was his ceremonial spurs, but there was a definite gentle peal coming off him. The spanking itself was as painless as most other dream spankings, and therefore rather pleasant.

I woke up smiling, and wondering how that arrangement had come to be in the first place.

I had a delicious dream last night, connected directly, I suspect, to yesterday’s launch of SpankingCast. I dreamed I was sent with my laptop and microphone to interview Alan Rickman about a spanking video he was about to shoot.

This was a charity endeavour, where he dressed up as Professor Snape and delivered a 10-minute lesson to a classroom of 10 or so schoolgirls, and then he was supposed to cane them one by one. I turned up before the shooting had started, so I asked whether he was looking forward to giving the canings.

“Of course not,” he said. “Snape might, but I don’t.”

I was terribly disappointed.

I was even more disappointed that I wasn’t one of the schoolgirls, and also that I woke up before they could shoot the film, and I could interview him again, after the canings had happened.

The most recent edition of “Cotswald Life” magazine gave us not one, but two startles on one page. (The page in question is itself a sort of blog, reprinting interesting quotes the author of the column enjoyed in other papers and magazines.)

“Silly and naughty.” – Elizabeth Hurley responds to the suggestion posed to her by the Irish Independent that she was once a member of a libertine group called The Viles who supposedly enjoyed a spot of spanking at Sudeley Castle.

“I like my smokes, a drop of whiskey and Guinness… People try to tell you it’s bad for you but my family wouldn’t dare ask me to stop. If they did, I’d put them across my lap and give them a slapped bum.” – Lorna Gobey celebrates her 100th birthday.

I really want to know whether Elizabeth Hurley thinks the idea of spanking is “silly and naughty”, or whether it’s just that particular group that she wouldn’t like to mix with.

Last Friday afternoon, 3.30pm: I’m sitting in a Cafe Nero enjoying a hot chocolate. Two delightful young ladies arrive at the next table.

“I had Latin today – my last lecture.”

“That’s good. Are you doing it again next year?”

“No. I mean, if i get told I’m going to get whacked with a ruler again…”

“What?”

“He used to teach in the times when they could punish the pupils. He always says, ‘If only I could use the ruler on you, you’d learn so much better.’”

Oh… my… goodness. I’m not sure whether they were studying at the local Uni or the nearby sixth-form college. Whichever, I think I want a job there teaching Latin…

(And I promise this is absolutely true; I typed the discussion verbatim into my phone as soon as I’d recovered from the shock of what I’d just heard!)

Our reader Mornington Crescent was walking around Ely the other day, and spied this great sign:

A cane collection sounds intriguing enough, but combining it with an establishment called “Sweet Memories”, makes me simply overcome with excitement.

It’s actually a single exhibition. First you get to admire a collection of canes: contemporary designer items along one wall, antique specimens along another, and the rest of the shop is taken up by related accessories: relevant literature (Abel’s book obviously has a place of honour) and a few other implements that go well in combination with the cane. (“You may want to warm your daughter up with this leather paddle, madam.”)

Then you proceed to the tasteful museum that connects you with great stories from the glory days of the cane. It’s a multimedia experience: it has tall back-lit displays showing the correct use of the cane; when you stand on a particular spot, it starts audio clips of sweet memories of their punishments recorded by local residents; here and there you see small screens playing out re-enactments of canings past. And for the enthusiasts, there is a hands-on corner, with a selection of canes you can try out.

I’m glad to see that the council in Ely has spent its money on such a worthy project.