Yeah! Your favourite scribe has just passed the 300 follower mark on Tumblr (actually that particular milestone I passed last week - but I was too modest to say). So (I so hate folk who start off their sentences with 'so' - it is something becoming ever more prevalent here in the UK, even on the BBC - ESPECIALY on the BBC!)... Sorry! Where was I? Ah, yes! So, does imbibing real ale and spanking mix? Well, certainly one should not spank when inebriated, just as one should never punish when angry... But someone seems to think so (left), seen on a bar in a wetherspoons pub (The Rochester Castle, Stoke Newington, North London N16 - I think) during that company's last UK-wide beer festival back in October last.
The 'implement' is actually a handy device designed to aid in carrying three one third of a pint glasses in one hand and nothing at all to do with corporal punishment, unless of course one has tasked one's prettier 'other half' (prettier than me? Ha!) to fetch and carry the afternoon's refreshment and she's...and she's.... and she's (I can't quite bring myself to say it!)... and she's SPILLED some of the precious nectar!!!! Oh my God - I've just come over all cold!
It is kind of interesting that someone behind that bar (presumably) recognized the passing resemblance the thing has to a well known variation on the so-called 'paddle', innit? (as they say around here).
Anyway; as you'll know, I'm pretty much broke and doing my best to keep going until I can get my next book out (not that the proceeds from THAT will make much difference) thanks to my bank misinforming me as to how much I am worth - and me going mental and blowing a load on 'essentials' such as booze and sun (in my own defence, I WAS deeply depressed and heading off down self-destruction ally - again!), but a friend had stood me to a day of drinkies. Well that same friend is standing me to another day of drinkies today, and there's another one of those beer festivals on - the Wetherspoons spring festival. Can you believe this lavish interior is actually the inside of a British pub? Well it is - The Hamilton Hall, at Liverpool Street station, London; it looks more like the Hermitage or something, paintings, ornate plaster mouldings, chandeliers, the works! What an amazing place! And I'm full of amazing ideas at the moment too, so I'm waiting for my mate to go so as to get on with a little writing (hope he leaves me with a bit of cash to buy a few more beers with!!). 
For what it's worth I've just changed the working title to THE SHAM CONJECTURE and my poor unfortunate hapless heroine has just had a damn good caning and has been fed a few squares of chocolate.
What is so bad about THAT? I hear you ask. Well, you see, it all depends on your viewpoint, whether she actually LIKES chocolate and how hungry she is!.
Presently she is having her waist length hair (spoiler alert - so now you know she hasn't had her head shaved) combed... With a nit comb.
Hmmm, interesting possibilities!
SHAM of course, in this usage (as well as obliquely referring to a plot device - of which more another time; if you're lucky) is an acronym developed from the initial letters of Subjugation, Husbandry And Management (of wayward young women).
Oh... Just before you go. Did I mention that comb is none too clean? No? Well it seems it's been through a few other heads first and not too well disinfected afterwards either - oh well! And there is a shower cap involved - I can tell you that much.
Now; on a different tack; I wonder if any of you ladies out there (and I KNOW there are some) can imagine horse hair knickers or perhaps polythene knickers with a woven horse hair lining worn under a coarse hessian prison dress? Just an idea!