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A FEW weeks ago almost nobody had heard of Miss Marianne Martindale. Now she is everywhere - holding press conferences, appearing on radio phone-ins, being interviewed and photographed by the classier Sunday supplements. It can be only a matter of time
before she is given her own TV chat show.
One can see why. Miss (sic) Martindale has just published a book on "the arts of spanking and caning, the use of the strap and most other disciplinary instruments". More alluringly still, she practises what she preaches: at her house in east London she has set up an all-female community named Aristasia, where she administers "good discipline" - in the form of regular wallopings - to her "pupils". Last Sunday's Observer magazine carried a full-page photo of Miss Martindale standing in her suburban drawing-room brandishing a cane.
The Observer's reporter was at pains to stress that Aristasia isn't a cover for a flagellant brothel. It is far more high-minded than that: the Aristasians believe in authoritarianism as a moral principle, and "draw on ancient philosophies" to justify their rejection of modernity. There is no television or radio in...