If you haven’t done your internet Christmas shopping yet, you’ve left it perilously late. Yes, second-day shipping could still rescue you; but you remain at the mercy of the web merchants, who are generally swamped and behind and may not actually ship your presents in a timely fashion.
Thus it was a few days ago that I ordered some items (can’t say what, because Bethie reads this). If you’ve got that sinking “Omigosh, I meant to order something last week!” feeling, you might still get lucky!
What should you order? That’s up to you. But (just to make her worry) here’s a little something I might have ordered for Bethie:
Or, I might not have.
Found this spanking and sailing gem on eBay:

It reads:
The pretty young wife of the banker
Sweetly slept while the yacht lay at anchor,
But she woke in dismay
When she heard the mate say:
“Let’s life up the top sheet and spanker.”
I found this vintage whipping artwork on Usenet:
See Also:
I’ll confess I’d never heard of Rihanna (or spanker Robin Thicke) before I saw this photo. Apparently they are singers in a band called “Umbrella”, currently doing a “Good Girls Gone Bad” tour:

From photospread in GQ.
From the Night And Day column in the Prague Post:
A simple birthday party at Jáma turned ugly … well, not ugly, but — um — let’s just say it took a sophomoric turn when about 12 people formed an impromptu “spanking machine” to punish the 18 year-old guest of honor. If you’re one of those studious science-club types who missed out on this, spanking machines served as a kind of ritual bridge from adolescent outcast to tribal member, a solemn ceremony bonding youth to their social group. Which, of course, is an anthropologic way to explain why a group of pre-teens (or in this case, adults) would wallop the hindquarters of another pre-teen (in this case, teen) on her birthday. Some things make perfect sense on a Friday night in Prague.
Tsk, tsk! Kids these days…
This review of a BBC show profiles Victorian author Elizabeth Gaskell and includes a brief mention of her professional relationship with Charles Dickens:
Her most crucial ally and collaborator was Charles Dickens, who took the fledgling writer under his wing only to exclaim later to a subeditor: “If I were Mr G, oh heaven how I would beat her.”