Posts Tagged ‘martinet’

Eloise stared at the booth and sighed. The sigh itself was a lie: A lie because it was her way of pretending it was all too much to care and nothing more than a bothersome inconvenience. The truth was the booth filled her with dread. The booth was an Enders Leigh and Steven’s deluxe punishment […]


“Although my daughter is of age, she is yet young and sometimes a little wilful my liege,” Lord Vosper said, concern edging his voice. “You think me too old for her?” King Vader said thoughtfully. “Oh no my liege, the honour you propose for our family is beyond measure, but I fear she is perhaps […]


Emma’s trials

25Aug10

Emma had been under Mildred’s tutelage for a month now. On three occasions she had almost left, but something had held her. She was totally out of her depth, a point underpinned after the first week when Mildred had written out a resignation from her job and demanded that Emma sign it. It was the […]


Still somewhere in mainland Europe. Today we ended up in a small lakeside village that used to be very much more important. A short visit to the local castle revealed that it had a dungeon. Whilst this is not unusual, it was interesting to note that one area was described as the ‘women’s oubliette’. Some […]


Spring rites of fertility pre-date civilisation. The ancients, before the restraints of civilisation used to relate to the world in a more fundamental way. They knew that death and rebirth were linked, as were creation and destruction. This is all bound up in notions of birth and sacrifice and pleasure and pain. That is why […]


Another snippet, from something called the Memoirs of Berlin set in the 1960s (do we have a theme for the week), which may have been originally translated and published in Privilege magazine. Again maybe true, probably not, you decide. Today I am happily married and very much part of a modern German family, but when […]


The title of yesterday’s post has been changed because it was too misleading and the question mark disappeared. Angela’s story is not over yet, in fact perhaps it is about to get more interesting. If you have not been following Angela’s story then this episode will probably be a bit strange for readers of this […]


In 1976, Spain became a democracy and had to catch up with modern Europe fast. There was suddenly a lot of interest in Spain’s hidden world as it had been under Franco’s dictatorship. On story that emerged was the domestic correction known as the courtyard chair punishment or outside of Spain the Spanish Chair. This […]