jilted over a cabbage

Beau Brummel was, for a period, the fashion arbiter for Regency England. His dictum was “A life of leisure is a difficult art… boredom is as depressing as an insistent creditor.”

He became a friend of the future George IV, who was a good bit older but impressed with Brummel’s wit and dress. The Prince of Wales, or Prinny*** as he was called, was quite a flashy dresser. For his first speech in the House of Lords he showed up in pink high heels which matched the pink satin lining of his black velvet, gold-embroidered (and pink-spangled) suiting. While known as a flashy dresser today, Brummel in fact believed in a much more sober style and less bright colors and he quickly converted the Prince from a fop into a dandy.

image

Brummel favoured starched muslin neckcloths which had to be tied just so. The collar, which was always fixed to the shirt, was so large that, before being folded down, it completely hid his head and face, and the white neckcloth was at least a foot in height. The first coup d’achet was made with the shirt collar, which he folded down to its proper size, and then, standing before the looking glass, with his chin poked up towards the ceiling, by the gentle and gradual declension of his lower jaw he creased the cravat to reasonable dimensions.

image found here

Asked for the address of his hairdresser Brummel replied: “I have three: the first is responsible for my temples, the second for the front and the third for the occiput.” When he was asked at a dinner whether he liked vegetables, he said he had never eaten any, adding after a pause: “No, that is not quite true – I once ate a pea.” He was said to have jilted a woman because she ate cabbage.

image

***Today, George IV is remembered mostly for his extravagant lifestyle of drinking, womanising and gambling that scandalised the country and got him heavily into debt. It is reported that every time he had intimate relations with a woman he would cut a lock of her hair and place it in an envelope with her name on it. Upon his death an astounding 7000 such envelopes were discovered.

image

a timely warning

I wonder how many of my male readers suffer from the same syndrome Sean Thomas succumbed to….

In 2001 I went online. A few months later, sitting idly at my laptop,  I decided to have a peek at all this porn that was supposed to be saturating the internet. I did this by googling the words ‘girls’ and ‘hardcore’. Somewhat to my surprise I found the images pretty titillating, and so I kept looking.

Soon, whenever I had a spare few minutes – or, better still, half an hour – I would start hungrily checking out net porn. One day I was surfing as usual when I happened across a site that contained spanking images. Intrigued, I logged on to it. To my surprise, I had an intense sexual reaction to them. What was going on? I had not the slightest idea that I was that into spanking.

image

This was the moment that the real addiction set in. My interest in spanking got me speculating: what other kinks was I harbouring? Plenty, as it turned out. Over the following months I discovered that I had a serious penchant for inter alia, lesbian gynaecology, interracial hardcore, and images of Japanese girls taking off their hotpants. I was also into netball players with no knickers, and drunk Russian girls exposing themselves, and convoluted scenarios where submissive Danish actresses were intimately shaved by their dominant female partners in the shower.

image

Try as I might to control myself, over the next few weeks I found that I was regularly spending five hours a day on my laptop – usually in the early hours when everyone else was in bed. This meant that I was getting about three hours’ sleep.

The crisis point came just before last Christmas. I was missing so much sleep by staying up so late that my health started to suffer. One day I caught tonsillitis, which, because I was so run down, turned into a quinsy (a nasty suppurative form). Eventually, I went to the doctor, who sent me straight to A&E. As I lay in the ward recuperating a few days later, the bitter truth sank in. This is it, Sean, I thought. You’ve really done it this time. You’ve actually wanked yourself into hospital.

So my question is this. Do you think the easy access to internet porn makes it more difficult to be satisfied with actual sex with a long term partner? Do you wish your partner would do some of the more way out things you find titillating in pornography? If you’re currently single do you find the internet a preferable sexual outlet to the hassle of finding a woman who thinks you’re attractive enough to sleep with – knowing that you’re going to have to consider her orgasm as well as your own? Modern day conundrums…..

Lethian fogs of forgetfulness

Hollywood in the 1920s was a wild place as this extract from an article written by Jane Dixon shows. She’d obviously graduated with honours from the School of Purple Prose

image

Filmdom welcomed William Desmond Taylor, gave him a seat among the mighty, hearkened to his word, moved at his command. Its men looked and admired. Its women looked—and loved. What richer sea could a love pirate sail? A list of the girls, the women, taken aboard the love pirate’s ship of dreams for a brief cruise on the sea of pleasure would read like a slightly deleted directory of the screen’s feminine stars.

image

Now, if we may believe rumor, the sated appetite of the love pirate called for stronger stimulants than a conquest of hearts. One report has him a member of a cult with an unmanly ritual. Another speaks boldly of drugs—opium, cocaine, Lethian fogs of forgetfulness, ending in wild orgies, during which women, in jealous frenzies, tore the clothes from each other’s bodies and, stripped to the waist, fought like tigers for the favor of the pirate ship captain.

Who sped on its horrid way the leaden pellet which brought the eventful story of the love pirate’s life to a tragic close? Was it one of the fair ships he had scuttled? Was it another pirate vessel, jealous of a rival’s plunder? Was it a legitimate craft, the captain of which could not endure the depredations of the modern Captain Kidd? Was it a derelict, its crew gone mad from dipping into a contraband cargo of drugs?

image

William Desmond Taylor was an actor and director who was murdered in 1922.

At 7:30 a.m. on the morning of February 2 the body of William Desmond Taylor was found inside his bungalow at the Alvarado Court Apartments, in the Westlake Park area of downtown Los Angeles.

A crowd gathered inside and someone identifying himself as a doctor stepped forward, made a cursory examination of the body, declared the victim had died of a stomach hemorrhage and was never seen again, perhaps owing to his own embarrassment, because when doubts later arose, the body was rolled over and it was discovered the 49-year-old film director had been shot in the back.

from Married to the Sea (click to enlarge)

More than a dozen individuals were eventually named as suspects by both the press and the police:

Henry Peavey, Taylor’s African American valet found the body. Newspapers noted that Peavey wore flashy golf costumes but did not own any golf clubs. Peavey was illiterate and bisexual. He had a criminal record which included arrests for vagrancy and public indecency. Peavey repeatedly accused Mabel Normand of the murder (she had teased him about his wardrobe) and was initially suspected of the crime himself.

image

Mabel Normand was a popular comedic actress and a close friend of Taylor. They might have had a romantic relationship. Although she and Taylor may have argued on the evening of his murder, she left his home at 7:45 p.m. in a happy mood, carrying a book he had given her. Her career had already slowed and her reputation was tarnished through two previous scandals, along with revelations of her drug use and a third scandal involving another lover shot by her chauffeur.

image

Mary Miles Minter was a popular actress and teen screen idol whose career had been guided by Taylor. Coded letters found in Taylor’s home suggested that a romantic relationship between the 49-year-old Taylor and 19-year-old Minter had started when she was 17.

Charlotte Charlotte Shelby was Minter’s mother. Like many “stage mothers”  she has been described as consumed by wanton greed and manipulation over her daughter’s career. Perhaps the most compelling circumstantial evidence was that Shelby allegedly owned a rare .38 caliber pistol and unusual bullets very similar to the kind which killed Taylor. After this later became public, she reportedly threw the pistol into a Louisiana bayou.

image

Margaret Gibson was a film actress who worked with Taylor when he first came to Hollywood. In 1917 she was tried and acquitted on charges equivalent to prostitution as well as allegations of opium dealing. In October 1964, she suffered a heart attack and as a recently converted Roman Catholic, before dying confessed she “shot and killed William Desmond Taylor” along with several other things the witness didn’t understand and could not remember.

image

Other suspects included Edward Sands, who had been Taylor’s cook and Faith MacLean, a close neighbour. Various theories were put forward after the murder and in the years since, along with the publication of many books claiming to have identified the murderer, but no hard evidence was ever uncovered to link the crime to a particular individual…… personally, I suspect Jane Dixon.

t shirt friday 27.8.2010

healingmagichands is playing along today

and sledpress too!

all sorts of intercourse

I don’t know what your sex education classes were like but I attended an all girl catholic school so ours were pretty abysmal. There were blackboard diagrams of fallopian tubes and a grainy twenty minute film of a girl who didn’t say “No” and ended up in a home for unwed mothers. Very enlightening. I don’t recall birth control being mentioned at all and we certainly didn’t get to see a condom application demonstration on one of these Teaching Kits

This is what else turns up when you type “wooden condom” into google

Woodos™ was started in 1865 when Harry Ryeman dug up a prehistoric wooden condom outside his apartment complex in Britian. Harry realized he could market this revolutionary product. After years of putting his hard working Christian values to the test, he emerged with a product with no significant advantage over the one he dug up. He then hired his buddy, Woody, to help him construct a larger, and more elongated wooden condom. Several year’s later, Woodos™ was born, and with it, the golden age of wooden condoms.

Wood Contour computers here

Woodos™ is still operated by these two men, and their corporation still stands by their original seal of quality. “If it isn’t long, hard, and elongated, then it isn’t a Woodos™,” Harry Ryeman has been known to say. Harry and Woody still maintain their business model of excellent customer service. They offer a lifetime warranty on all Woodos™ condoms, and have several authorized maintenance shops set up through the country.

Every single wooden condom produced at the Woodos™ factory is put through an extensive testing process to ensure only the finest condoms are delivered to the customer. After a batch is finished, each individual condom is thoroughly inspected for cracks and blemishes by a Licensed Condom Technician. They are also checked for splinters, which are sanded out in-house. I bet you’re saying, “How can wooden condoms be so great if they could give me splinters on my wang?” While splinters are indeed an unfortunate side effect of the wooden condom on occasion, the risk is worth it to be able to wear a hand-crafted Woodos™.

After the splinter checking phase, the condom is then taken to a heat chamber, where it is exposed to temperatures similar to those experienced during intercourse, both anal and vaginal. After this phase, another technician will take the condom to the “playground”, where he will use the condom during all sorts of intercourse. The condom is then immediately shipped out with the semen still in the condom, to keep the condom as fresh and sanitary as possible until it arrives at your door.

image

Our custom shop can make you a condom of up to 7 feet, and in any type of wood or composite. We can also emblazon your condom with logos and insignias! Want some neon lights? The shop does that too! We can put almost anything on our wooden condoms! We have put on spinners, LEDs, speakers, iPod docking stations, and many other things in the past! Need food on the job? Our custom shop technicians can add a toaster oven and a hot plate! You’re all good to go! Work in shady areas of town? Then the condom/handgun may be just the thing, available in several different calibers! Want your partner to suck your shlong? Well then you might consider getting your condom finished in one of our many delicious flavors! Are you an outdoorsman? If so, the Wooden Condom/Swiss Army Knife may be for you!

image

Latex condoms only offer a 99% protection rate, and only when worn properly. How often does that happen? Wooden condoms can offer up to 99.3% protection, and it’s virtually impossible to wear it incorrectly. With a wooden condom on your shlong, your tool will appear much more pronounced and sizable.

You grandchildren will be proud to inherit such a timeless classic! These wooden condoms hold so much value, they will never go out of style! Pass your condom down from generation to generation! Your family may never need to buy another condom again once you perish. When you buy a wooden condom for yourself, you’re investing in your family’s sexual future.

a durable mick

Michael Malloy (1873-1933) was an ex firefighting Irishman with dubious friends.

image

The events that led to Malloy’s death began in January 1933. He was, at the time, alcoholic and homeless. Five men who were acquainted with him, Tony Marino, Joseph Murphy, Francis Pasqua, Hershey Green, and Daniel Kriesberg, plotted to take out three life insurance policies on Malloy and then get him to drink himself to death.

(click to enlarge) from Married to the Sea

Marino owned a speakeasy and gave Malloy unlimited credit, thinking Malloy would abuse it and drink himself to death. Although Malloy drank for the majority of his waking day, it did not kill him. To remedy this, antifreeze was substituted for liquor, but still, Malloy would drink until he passed out, wake up, and came back for more. Antifreeze was substituted with turpentine, followed by horse liniment, and finally mixed in rat poison. Still, Malloy lived.

(click to enlarge) from Married to the Sea

The group then tried raw oysters soaked in methanol. Followed by a sandwich of spoiled sardines mixed with poison.

When that failed, they decided that it was unlikely that anything Malloy ingested was going to kill him, so the Murder Trust decided to freeze him to death. On a night when the temperature reached -14 °F (-26 °C), Malloy drank until he passed out, was carried to a park, dumped in the snow, and had five gallons of water poured on his bare chest. Nevertheless, Malloy reappeared the following day for his drink. The next attempt on his life came when they hit him with Green’s taxi.

image

Murphy stood him up in the middle of the roadway, and Green backed up his taxi two full blocks to build up enough speed to complete the job. Somehow, Malloy stumbled to safety. They then took Malloy to Gun Hill Road. This time, Green hit him.

The gang gleefully retreated to Marino’s and again waited for an announcement of Malloy’s demise. For days nothing appeared in the newspapers.

Where was he? Malloy was recovering in the hospital under a different name, having sustained a fractured skull, a concussion and a broken shoulder. The indestructible barfly returned several weeks later to the speakeasy and announced he had an awful thirst.

Charles Bukowski, the original Barfly

On February 22, after he passed out for the night, they took him to Murphy’s room, put a hose in his mouth that was connected to the gas jet, and turned it on which is how they finally killed managed to kill him.

However, the members of the Murder Trust proved to be their own worst enemies—they talked too much and squabbled among themselves. Eventually police heard the rumors of what they did, and had the body exhumed. Green went to prison, and the other four members were executed in the electric chair at Sing Sing.

Malloy was reburied, and took with him to the grave the secret of a hardy and nearly indestructible constitution.

image found here

my love agape

Reverend Henry James Prince was an Anglican priest who declared himself to be the Messiah in 1846. He built a mansion called Agapemone in Spaxton, Somerset for himself and his devoted followers.

image

In the style popular with cult leaders of the present century, Mr Prince advocated celibacy while apparently practising the reverse. In 1856, he was said to have dressed in ceremonial red robes and deflowered a virgin in front of an adoring congregation including his wife. He proclaimed the act a Great Manifestation, “the mystic union of flesh and spirit”, and denied responsibility for the girl’s subsequent pregnancy, naming the devil as the father instead. The rumours multiplied.

image

Proving mortal after all, Mr Prince died in 1899, but another wayward cleric, John Smyth-Piggott, took over his mantle and lived at the house with a number of “soul brides”.

Stories about the Agapemone are legion. In the Lamb Inn, Spaxton, everyone knows something of the strange sect. A favourite tale is how Mr Prince would choose his next female companion by sitting on a revolving stage and seeing who was in front of him when it stopped turning. The young ladies were said to have stripped naked to bathe him.

this image and an unrelated but interesting story found here

Popular legend also claims that the departed Agapemonites were buried vertically so they were prepared for resurrection when the moment came. When the last soul bride died in 1956, the gravediggers dug deep just to check on Smyth-Piggott who had passed away 27 years earlier. There were no obvious signs that he had risen again.

image

corset friday 20.8.2010

photographer: The King

permission granted by: queenwilly

scarlet boots and easy virtue

I was reading an article recently where the author, after being shown around the Hotel Granvia Kyoto by a smiling, bowing Japanese lady was momentarily disconcerted when she concluded her tour by holding up a sign “People with tattoos, and other unsuitable hotel guests, will not be allowed in the pool”. The author suggested it was intended to discourage members of the feared Yakuza though I would have thought a mere sign wouldn’t be much of a deterrent to those guys…..

image

Back in 18th century New York, the Delmonico*** family were also concerned about running a respectable establishment. No man was permitted to eat alone with a woman in the private rooms, all of which had to have their doors left open and be regularly visited by the staff to ensure that nothing improper was taking place.

Mark Twain at Delmonico’s

Delmonico’s was also famous for its cotillion dinners, limited to 100 subscribers at a time. Mrs Pierre Lorillard Ronalds hosted one of these where guests were required to dress in extravagant costumes. She arrived representing “Music”; her gown was embroidered with the score of an Italian ballet and on her head she flaunted a tiara composed of musical notes grouped around a harp, from jets in which flickered flames that were fed by a gas cylinder concealed by false hair. The reporters next day also drew attention to her scarlet boots encircled by tiny tinkling bells which were identical with those worn by women of easy virtue in Water Street. This upset the conservative Delmonicos greatly.

Mrs Fanny Rolands

But one man appeared to be exempt to their moral strictures.  Colonel D’Alton Mann, was the editor of a notorious weekly magazine, Town Topics, that filled its columns with society scandals. Rumour had it that the most salacious tidbits never made it into the magazine because when the copy had been set up in print, the Colonel would make straight for Delmonico’s with the galley proofs and seat himself at a reserved table near the entrance where he could observe his quarry’s arrival at once.

Colonel Mann

While waiting, he usually ate 6 mutton chops served with liver, kidneys and baked yams, and well irrigated by a bottle of the best champagne. To the amusement of those in his vicinity, he often made appreciative “woof woof” noises.

When the person whom the Colonel was seeking came in, accompanied by his wife or some other guest, the Colonel would tip a page to say he was wanted urgently on the bar telephone. There the Colonel would be already installed with two glasses and another bottle of champagne. “Just the fellow I want to see!” he would exclaim. “I was leaving for lunch when this proof turned up from the composing room. It’s about you, would you cast your eye over it for accuracy?”

Dismayed by what he read, the other would readily agree to ‘lend’ the Colonel £500 in return for which he would be given the galley proof and assured the story would never be published. D’Alton always kept his word and some people even regarded it as a sort of compliment to be considered of sufficient importance to merit his attention.

image

*** excerpt from Foie Gras and Trumpets by Charles Neilsen Gattey

fumbling towards ecstasy

Brothel keeper Sarah Prendergast was best remembered for an amusing scandal involving the Earl of Harrington  in 1778.

image

“Known as a person of the most exceptional immorality, the Earl was nicknamed “Lord Fumble” because of his sexual preferences. At one stage he had a harem in his mansion which comprised a Negress in a feathered turban, a young girl in pseudo-classical dress, another dressed as a country wench as well as a mandolin player.

Buttered Beauty

On the evening in question he rejected the three resident whores Sarah offered him, so she sent out for a couple of “fresh country tits” from another establishment, Mrs Butler’s.

image

The doddery old Earl indulged in manual dalliance to his satisfaction but only gave the girls three guineas each which was rather less than they expected. When they returned to Mrs Butler’s she demanded her share of the money, taking the girl’s clothes off them when they refused to pay up. Police were called and both Mrs Butler and her husband were arrested.

image

The Earl was furious as details of his thrice weekly visits to Sarah’s seraglio where he partook of two whores at a time were leaked to the press. The sensible Mrs Prendergast  bought up all copies of the papers and paid the whores £5 to drop all charges.

To cheer everyone up she held a grand ball at which the finest women in all Europe would appear “puris naturalibus”. Lord Fumble, in an expression of gratitude, started the ball rolling with a subscription of £50 towards the cost. The ball was a great success. Aristocratic ladies flocked to join professional beauties and danced nude for hours while an orchestra played facing the wall so as not to embarrass them.

Mrs Prendergast made a profit of £1000. Lord Fumble died a few weeks later.