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The Countess Writes

Isn't the Major ferocious! And she's so gorgeous when she's angry, too. Her face gets all flushed and her green eyes just glow. It makes a blonde think all kinds of thoughts. If she knew how delectable she looks at such moments, she would probably try harder to control her temper! And I think that I know of a way to make her even angrier now. She is determined to outsmart me in the matter of that Fragonard, isn't she? Well, I am going to deny her the opportunity! All of you, just wait and see what I'm going to do!

Doria Red, Countess of Glorian
Britannia, Altalia, Kadoria

The Case of the Filched Fragonard

As the rustics on my estate would say, this caps the globe.

You must have heard that the Llangollen Museum has been robbed. Indeed, I cannot imagine how anypette could have avoided hearing of it; it seems that no one is talking of anything else. The reporting, of course, has as usual been entirely overwrought. The missing work is certainly not worth “millions of pounds”; four hundred thousand, perhaps. And the so-called museum security is a disgrace; a child could have easily broken in without undue difficulty and strolled off with anything she wanted. Which of course is precisely what happened. Those pictures of Jupitrix and Callisto are rather riskay if you ask me, but I suppose they are national cultural heritages. I could have warned them that displaying such provocative images out there where anypette could see them would excite the lower elements, and now I have as usual been proven right. One of those lurid paintings has been stolen!

Just coincidentally, of course, Lady Glorian just happened to be visiting the Museum at some sort of gala thing that very night.

I dutifully reported my suspicions to the District Governess, but did she listen to me? Of course not. Perhaps she is complacent because those who know about the Countess’s disgraceful “hobby” also know that she always eventually returns the items she pilfers. But really, “borrowing” a classic painting worth who knows how much from a prestigious museum is really going too far.

So when it became clear that my superior was going to do nothing, I decided to catch the Countess red-handed with her ill-gotten gains. Word about town was that she was throwing one of her enormous hedonistic parties, and it is simplicity itself for any well-dressed maiden to join, with or without an invitation. I simply strolled in two hours after the event was scheduled to begin, on the theory that the sort of pette who keeps company with hussies like the Countess probably thinks that punctuality is commonplace and prefers to be “fashionably late”. Humph.

There was a tremendous crowd in attendance, all dressed to the nines. Indeed, I was downright conspicuous in my sober navy blue suit. Sequins, scandalous low cuts, and elaborate coiffures were the order of the day. I found that every time I noticed tumbling golden curls I would quickly scrutinize their owner to see if she were the Countess, but of course what I was really seeking was that overly lush painting.

I was only hoping to get a glimpse of a likely hiding place. I certainly never expected to see that painting displayed, bold as brass, right on the wall of her decadent overdecorated ballroom!

I could scarcely believe my eyes. I stood there staring at it, and that was when the Countess finally made her appearance. She was wearing an exceedingly tight evening gown of turquoise silk that was just… she was just… that is, she was disgraceful. Stunning, of course, but disgracefully so. And the turquoise silk set off her torchlight-yellow hair quite strikingly, and reflected in her robin’s-egg eyes to make them appear turquoise too. Small wonder that every brunette in the place was looking at her the way wolves look at steaks. Humph.

She went to stand beside the stolen painting, and everypette fell silent to listen to her announcement. She glanced around at her guests and noticed me, and the shameless little minx actually had the gall to dimple at me! Thank Dea no one noticed that it was directed at me. At least, I don’t believe anypette did.

Then she declared, “Thank you all for coming to see my newest acquisition. I have especially invited Professor Quirrell from the University at Ladyton, so that she can tell you all about it.”

The Professor, an elegant brunette of mature years, came forward and spent several minutes scrutinizing the painting through her lorgnette. At length she announced, “It is a very skilled copy, My Lady.”

“Copy!” somepette exclaimed.

The Countess laughed. “Of course, silly, you didn’t think I actually owned a Fragonard, did you? In my dreams alone!”

Naturally my suspicions were aroused. As the revelers resumed their conversations and dancing and gluttony, all apparently under the impression that this is Amazonian Rome rather than Kadorian Altalia, I elbowed my way to the Countess’s side. She fluttered her lashes at me as if she were just another silly blonde with nothing better to do than flirt with brunettes. I, however, know her better than that!

“Why, Major. How very lovely to see you. Had I known you might attend, I should certainly have sent you an invitation. And that suit is ever so stunning, especially since it forces a pette to use her imagination.”

I ignored this drivel and got straight to the point. “I don’t believe for one moment that this painting is a fake, Lady Glorian,” I informed her. “You are the culprit who swiped this work of art from the Llangollen Museum!”

She smiled coyly. “But, my dear Major. You all just heard Professor Quirrell say that this isn’t the real Fragonard, and she is the leading authority in the field.” She leaned closer, eyes dancing. “Surely you would not presume to question her artistic judgment?”

“No one could credibly charge you against the Professor’s testimony,” I admitted. “My superiors would never stand for it. How did you coax her to lie for you?”

“I don’t kiss and tell,” the Countess answered pertly, winking.

“Sooner or later, Lady Glorian, I am going to put a stop to your heinous deeds!” I promised her. “And I shall see this painting back in its proper place before the week is out, mark my words!”

She tossed her abundant shining curls. “Only if I wish for you to, my dear Major!”

There was nothing more to say. I bowed formally and took my leave without another word. But I shall put that vixen in her place yet!

Major Klara von dem Eberbach

Her Majesty’s Royal Army

Germania, Altalia, Kadoria

—10th June—

MUSEUM HEIST SHOCKER!

Daredevil Thief Still at Large

By Emily Zola

Museum guards at the interprovincially renowned Llangollen Museum of Art were stunned this morning to discover that a daring theft had occurred in the dark of night, almost under their very noses!

“I was doing my dawn patrol of the third gallery,” reports Miss Petty, the dashingly uniformed brunette guard, “and I noticed that something was missing.”

That “something” was a painting worth millions of pounds. Stealing it from the Llangollen Museum, which to discourage temptation of those of weak character has the finest locks in Quirinelle as well as several strapping – in every sense of the word – young brunettes on guard, is a feat that defies comprehension. One is almost tempted to speculate that the daredevil thief who pulled it off must have had almost magical powers. And the audacity of the act has shocked the Province!

The third gallery of the Llangollen Museum is devoted to depictions of the legendary amour of Jupitrix and Callisto. Some of the more straightlaced members of the community have deemed the works in this gallery a touch riskay, but their transcendent beauty has won over one generation after another, inspiring Arcadian artists over and over.

“The ‘Jupitrix and Callisto’ painting that was stolen was painted by the great Arcadian Miss Jeanne Honour Fragonard,” explained Miss Calvert, the museum directrix, with visible emotion. “It was one of the most valuable works in the collection.”

When asked who could be responsible for this heinous crime, the District Governess declined to comment, stating only that she was confident that the work would be Anonymously Returned in time.

We may hope so, but loyal subjects shall not rest easy in their beds until Miss Fragonard’s work is back in its place in the Museum!

Regency Cant

It seems un peu peculiar to me to hear Miss Taggart holding forth on the topic of slang, given the equally peculiar looks she gives me when I say perfectly normal things like "I wish she were at Jericho" or "my dibs are sadly out of tune."

Within the delicate ecosystem of my brain, people are always either swells of the first stare, or Haymarket ware, or making a mull of something or a cake of themselves. This is due to my years of slavishly re-reading the Regency novels of Georgette Heyer in all their glorious historical accuracy.

But you, too, can be calling people notoriously picksome and jug-bitten in no time, with this handy compendium of Regency cant: It's simply first-rate for astounding neighbours and perplexing cats.

Anne Belleanne

Brass Tacks and the Queen's English

I had no idea I was speaking Cockney rhyming slang. I assumed the "brass tacks" expression came from some Western-Arcadian industrial process! I don't know of any other Cockney phrase that's crossed the Pond, but who knows. In any case, up-to-date slang is very racinating. If even our shortcomings are racinated, then we may be confident that we are living a Real life! Remember that in Children of the Void, the diction mistress tells her pupils that lower-class accents are all right, so long as they are up-to-date lower-class accents, rather than bongo ones. In short, when you speak improperly, be sure to do it properly!

Which reminds me of a Culverian joke. A pette from Northern Culveria was visiting Southern Culveria and couldn't always understand our Southern accents and idioms. One day, in exasperation, she burst out, "Why can't you Southerners speak English?"

One of the Southerners replied with restraint, "We do speak English."

"Well, but it's not the Queen's English."

"Yes, it is. Elvira Presley was a Southerner."

~Eve,
Belladonna

Exciting New Links

So much is going on these days! We are delighted to draw your attention to three exciting new places to go.First, The Chronicles of Avendale. These are the complete narratives from the first incarnation of Avendale School about five years ago. They have been edited by Miss Eve of Belladonna and are hosted by Miss Anne Belleanne at her personal site. There us a huge amount of material here, of interest to all Aristasians and especially to those who are following or playing in the New Avendale School.

This would be a big enough announcement for any one day — but wait! — there is more to come. The Llangollen Museum of Art at Belladonna has opened a new Tamara de Lempicka Gallery. In terms of elektra-geography, The Llangollen Museum is stuated in Avenbridge Town, near to Avendale School, and it will be possible for the girls of Avendale to visit the exhibition at the new gallery at the same time as the girls of Avenbridge School visit the Tamara de Lempicka Exhibition at the Royal Academy in Chelverton/London.

Magically, the opening of the new gallery coincides with an absolutely delightful Tamara-related event at the Aristasian Embassy in Avendale District near London, which will be reported here very shortly.

Finally, a photograph has been added to Miss Serelique's instructional Lesson on Aristasian Money showing all the current Coins of the Realm neatly photographed on the back of a standard red Avendale Excercise Book — oops! am I giving away artistic secrets here?

Anyway, here is a close-up of a Queen Elspeth half-crown from Quirinelle, showing the validation mark (the overstamped letter A) which makes it legal tender in Aristasian Districts.

Happy link-hopping.

The Blonde Management

So Much Reading!

What a coincidence- not only am I currently reading an Abbey Girls book but I have a copy of The Fortunes of Jacky on my bookshelf! So it would appear that I've already begun much of my Aristasian reading without even thinking about it.

I think Miss Brightmore's idea of a tertiary reading list is rather splendid, although if I ever get to the secondary reading list that would be something! After a short but thourough search I can not find some of the books mentioned. I wonder if the new Harmony Point department store will have a book department?

I am almost certain it will contain a stocking department but I wonder if any pette can tell me what the correct name for a stocking department is? I am quite sure that is has a different name.

Colette xx

Hmmm ... "Ground floor, lingerie, stockings and accessories" perhaps. The stockings pictured here are actually available now in the tiny forerunner of the Harmony Point at Elektrabay. Price three shillings, we believe.

Rhyming Slang and other Loose Talk

I am fascinated to hear that the expression "brass tacks" is current in Culveria. It must be one of the few examples of Cockney rhyming slang to have crossed the pond. "Brass tacks" is originally rhyming slang for "facts" (which one has to pronounce in a Cockney manner to make it rhyme properly).

Speaking of which, one will occasionally hear Aristasians-in-Telluria speaking of "Belgians" when they are referring to people who are sunk in the Pit, but certainly not of Belgian nationality. This is also rhyming slang: Belgian Congo = Bongo.

Aristasians tend to be more formal in speech than their Tellurian equivalents, but, especially among schoolgirls and "pippsies" there is, along with the slang shared with their Tellurian equivalents "ripping", "tuck", "blimey" etc. a certain amount of specifically Aristasian slang which is mysterious to outsiders, such a "guzz" or "old tarry rope".

To guzz is to look or stare, to guzz out to investigate, to come the old tarry rope to pretend to be an "old hand" when one knows little, as in "Don't come the old tarry rope with me", or:

"You are clever — did you really know all that?"

"No, it was just tarry rope [i.e. bluff]."

"Tarry", by the way, rhymes to "starry" — the expression is, I fancy, a humorously absurd schoolgirl rendition of imaginary sailors' or pirates' talk.

These expressions are considered loose, slangy and even a bit "rough". Definitely not to be used in front of schoolmistresses.

Miss Camellia

Brass Tacks and Edenic Glories

You have a copy of the movie Olivia at the Embassy? Oh, I am so jealous! It is impossible, or nearly so, to acquire a copy here in Culveria. A few years ago I found a place in England which was willing to sell it, but I would have had to fill out forms promising not to display it for material gain and pay a great deal more than I could afford at the time, and now I cannot even find that place anymore. But perhaps someday it will be made available. I can but hope.

As to brass tacks... when I said that in my earlier daydreams about the touch of a blonde's hand on my own, I didn't know what they were truly about, I was not exactly referring to... well, to those things which we share with Dea's lesser creatures. I meant that I was so innocent that I barely knew that Sapphists existed, and assumed that one day I would find the right em-ay-en and so forth. Which meant that when I had feelings for blondes, not only did my thoughts not turn at once to "brass tacks", as such things were not even in my mind yet, but also that I did not think of more decorous and aetherial conclusions to such contact. That is, I didn't dream of having that certain blonde exchange romantic vows with me, or of kisses, or "going steady" with me. I wouldn't have said I had a crush on her or that I wanted her for a sweetheart or anything so concrete. My dreams revolved entirely around the moment itself: the graceful way she leaned over to pick up her pencil, the way she smiled at certain moments, and the warm glow I felt when she gave me a brief, sisterly (to her!) hug. And I cherish the memory of being able to experience those feelings for her without having a framework, as it were, for those emotions and what they could lead to. It was almost like being Adama marvelling at the new creation, Eve, without yet knowing what blondes and brunettes were to mean to each other as Dea's creation unfolded.

Nowadays, of course, when I see an attractive blonde, my daydreams are more specific: the "brass tacks" of dinner and dancing, coy flirtations, the eventual honest offer and, if she accepts, little blondes and little brunettes. Certainly my present daydreams of the sacred bond of wedlock and the joy of daughters are a far cry from Freudian reductionist nonsense, but at the same time, they do not have quite the Edenic glory of my youthful infatuations that I did not even know were infatuations.

~Eve,

Belladonna

On French Films and the Truth about Love

It really is exciting about the shop, isn't it? It will be an Art-Neo department store in Elektraspace, just like Harriet's in Ladyton. At the moment certain pettes are struggling with the technicals at various different levels, so the first incarnation of the shop may be a bit partial, but we are hoping something will appear pretty soon.

Olivia is a truly gorgeous book: sensitive, civilised and passionate. Did you know there is a film of it? It has just been made in Quirinelle by Jacqueline Audry. It is in French with at-times-rather-hard-to-read Westrenne subtitles and it is beyond gorgeous. The school has two headmistresses, one blonde and one brunette — but I mean one really brunette and one utterly blonde.

We have a copy at the Embassy. If others can get it, perhaps there is a way we could arrange a "merged" cinema visit for our various friends across the world.

Dear Miss Eve, you raise a fascinating point when you write:

I am lucky enough that, even growing up in the Pit, I managed to be innocent enough to spend hours dreaming about the touch of a lovely blonde's hand on my own without those dreams being tainted with the brass tacks, as it were — that is, without really knowing what those sweet girlish dreams were truly about.

But what were they truly about? Here, I think is where we must free ourselves from that dreadful Herr Doktor Freud and the Brass tack Brigade. Their theory (flowing logically from the notion that Tellurians are evolved animals) is that the "ultimate truth" about our finest and most delicate feelings of adoration lies in the reproductive instinct. Hence the idea — unpopular in the Pit, but entirely necessary to the logic of a materialist/Darwinist view of the origins of humanity — that non-reproductive erotic feelings are "sexual perversions".

Now I have no doubt that biology — whether Aristasian or Tellurian plays its part in these matters, but I am equally sure that it is not "what they are truly about". Love, attraction, and all the subtle and delicate things that we feel for the other sex (and sometimes for our own) are as fascinating and mysterious as they have ever been. If we accept the "explainings away" of the Brass Tack school we only impoverish our experience of life. It is an interesting example of the way a theory can actually coarsen and damage not just our thoughts, but our emotions.

Love is of Celestial origin The ultimate origins of love lie not in the body but in the soul. If they become — in this earthly sojourn — temporarily entwined with the reproductive urge they are by no means reducible to that. The true source of Love lies with the Angels, not with the Apes: and its many delicate varieties are not mere "dressings-up" or "wanderings astray" of the urge to multiply, but are expressions of the intricate and beautiful dance of soul with soul and soul with Spirit.

But if we say we know nothing about the origin of love, but simply feel its many-faceted loveliness if we are, as you so beautifully put it, "innocent enough to spend hours dreaming about the touch of a lovely blonde's hand on my own", we shall be far wiser and understand far more than if we try to understand it in ways tainted by the dismal Brass-Tack heritage of the twentieth century.

Lindie

Blonde Bombshell

An Imperial, please, barpette. And your phone number. Unless, of course, your sweetheart owns a cane.

Hmm. And I must say, that print on the wall there is lovely. I don't suppose you know where the original is? It would be thrilling to see the genuine article. It is my creed to always get what I want, whether a work of art, a brunette, or a blonde! I live for the pursuit of beauty in any form!

Of course I date other blondes as well as brunettes. I couldn't marry them, of course, but then, I'm young yet; why hurry? And there are so many lovely blondes in the world. Just now I'm seeing the most darling young blonde. Her name is Gabrielle Cesare, and she looks an utter angel! She's very young and quite innocent; why, the first time I kissed her, she swooned! The dear's a bit of a bluestocking. She's so wrapped up in her books that she doesn't notice all the brunettes — and some of the blondes — giving her languishing looks everywhere she goes!

I'm taking her to a movie tomorrow. A Yank in the RAF, starring the ravishing Betty Grable, the pette with the million dollar legs. There's this utterly swoonworthy scene right at the beginning where - lean close, pette, in case any of the more delicate sort of blonde is nearby - you can see her stocking tops plain as day! She's hopping out of a car in a hurry, and her skirt just flies up, and for an entire second her stocking tops are visible. I've seen it three times.

But there's another film that has something even more deliciously riskay. I know the directrix of A Yank in the RAF gave us that little treat purposely — and it's working, brunettes are lined up around the block to see it, aren't they? But there's another movie where there is a very fleeting glimpse of stocking that I'm certain is a mistake. >giggle< It's Covergirl starring Rita Hayworth, though alas, it isn't Miss Hayworth's stockings we get that peek at. I'm not sure of the actress's name, but she's a blonde, and there's one scene where she's in an office auditioning, and she sits down in a chair and crosses her legs, and if you look very carefully, you can just make out the edge of her stocking top. It's utterly thrilling.

Oh, don't misunderstand me. I'm not a fast blonde. Well, that stainless Major von dem Eberbach would probably think so, but I'm certain that her feet are iron, not clay.

You know the Iron Maiden? Stunning, isn't she? I don't believe I've ever met a more brunette brunette! Pity she's so terribly proper. You just know that she was a Prefect in school. The sort that gets nicknamed "the Perfect Prefect" - doesn't every school have one? I'll bet that she wouldn't even know what to do with a blonde if she took one on a long drive through the countryside and they ran out of gas.

Doria Red, Countess of Glorian

England, Altalia, Kadoria

Racinating Reading

Oh, oh! An Aristasian shop, selling real up-to-date schoolgirl books? Can it be true?

And Aristasian reading! A favorite subject of mine!

I absolutely must recommend Olivia. It's a most famous Sapphist schoolgirl romance; as with Mädchen in Uniform, it is the story of a pupil's infatuation with a teacher. It utterly trembles with sensuality, the more so because the narratrix is utterly innocent about the nature of her feelings. I am lucky enough that, even growing up in the Pit, I managed to be innocent enough to spend hours dreaming about the touch of a lovely blonde's hand on my own without those dreams being tainted with the brass tacks, as it were — that is, without really knowing what those sweet girlish dreams were truly about. I so utterly pity those bongos whose innocence was plundered so early that they may never experience this!

Another possibility is a very hard-to-find book, Therese and Isabelle. I haven't actually read it, but I have seen the movie, which is Infra and a bit naughty, so only adult pettes should view it. But it is the love story of two schoolgirls, a brunette and a most exquisite blonde, and so I really have to mention it.

While I am on the subject, I have often thought about adding a page to Belladonna about schoolgirl romances such as these. If anypette can suggest more stories of this sort, I'd be most grateful!

Those of you familiar with my Elektra-site, Belladonna, will know of a couple of other books I would recommend that I think are of special interest to Aristasians. For instance, Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilmore, as it is set in an all-female world, though one not nearly so interesting as Aristasia. Less well known is another of Miss Gilmore's novels, the unjustly neglected Benigna McAvelly, whose nature matches her name: she strives to apply Machiavellian tactics to achieve benign, happy results!

Another highly racinating item is Kadorian Wonder Woman comics — really, what could be more racinating? And in the last few years, some enterprising bongos have had the sense to republish up-to-date comic books, including those of the Amazing Amazon, in large volumes called "archives"; they aren't cheap, except in comparison to what 60-year-old comic books cost in the Pit! I think that if I tell interested pettes that they may buy Wonder Woman's archives at an Amazonian Elektra-site, they will know to what I refer.

As a Culverian, allow me to remind you all of an old Culverian standby: Mr. Horatio Alger, whose books teach the good old Culverian values of hard work, honesty and self-reliance. But his books were about boys, you protest? True, but with two exceptions, both of which can be gotten from Polyglot Press. One is Helen Ford and the other is Tattered Tom, Tom being the nickname of a tomboy who, being alone in the world and having to shift for herself, does boy's work, ably defends herself from bullies with her fists, and dresses, partly, in boy's clothes, until she is reunited with her long-lost family and given her rightful inheritance. And while if this story were being told by a bongo, young Tom would have insisted on remaining coarse and uncivilized and rebelled against ladylike manners and clothing, Tom in fact takes to respectability with alacrity: "She was now a young lady in manners, and her handsome dress set off a face which had always been attractive."

I have always been fond of girls' classics, ever since I was a girl. One of my favorites, too-little known, is Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher. It is about a little girl who, though a brunette, is oversheltered by well-meaning aunts, to the extent that she is afraid of, well, just about everything. When circumstance requires that she stay with some other relatives for a time, they expect her, as a matter of course, to be far more independent, and she at last begins to blossom into her true brunettishness. And anypette who likes this story will also love the familiar standbys, Anne of Green Gables, Little House on the Prairie, The All-of-a-Kind Family and the series each of those books belongs to.

There is a passage in Jane Eyre which always sets me to wistful dreams of living in an Aristasian colony. It is where Miss Eyre is describing what it was like to live with her cousins Diana and Mary: "There was a reviving pleasure in this intercourse, of a kind now tasted by me for the first time -- the pleasure arising from perfect congeniality of tastes, sentiments, and principles. I liked to read what they liked to read: what they enjoyed, delighted me; what they approved, I reverenced."

Eve Taggart,
Belladonna.org

Strangers in Paradise

Dear Editress

Quite some time ago I chanced on a link from your delightful and inspiring pages to some chapters of Strangers in Paradise.

I have been searching your site ever since then in the hope that I could find those chapters once more. Of course, I also hoped that more of the fascinating tale would unfold as, I am sure that you will appreciate, I am quite eaten up with curiosity as to what adventures will befall the mysterious, dashing brunette in the hostelry.

I would be so grateful if you could refer me to the link, which I have foolishly mislain, and relieve my great curiosity regarding further developments in the tale.

With many thanks for your most inspiring site.

Zelda

Regrettably the link no longer exists. Aristasia.com, as you may have discovered, has been boarded by Elektraspace pirates — that is where the extracts from Strangers used to be. The title was only a working one and the name (I can't remember wha it was) of the authoress concealed Miss Snow. It was projected to be a Great Epic,and, I believe, still is; though little of it has been mentioned for some time. She meant to scratch some of the early chapters, and aparently lost some of the more important ones that were never published in Elektraspace [warning — always publish your work in Elektraspace, it is the only way to avoid losing it] which is always a touch demoralising for a clever but clumsy authoress. The currently projected title for the whole work is Daughters of the Blue Raihir. Perhaps we shall see more of it soonish.

Tertiary Reading List

My darling Girls,

When I was at University almost every Lecturer produced a Reading List to go with her course. The good ones produced a Secondary Reading List to go to when the first had become exhausted or when extra scholarly reading was necessary or helpful. However, we had one extraordinarily erudite Don whose courses not only came complete with Primary and Secondary Lists, but always a very extensive Tertiary List too. It sounds as though some of our Culverian cousins ought to have been in her classes!

Well, all that to say this: that when one has exhausted all the conventional choices in reading matter, perhaps a little more unusual, but extremely interesting, selection might be found among the Anglo-Saxon and Mediaeval Saints such as Juliana, Katherine of Alexandria or Margaret. They are most usually brunette ladies who have done extraordinary things in elaborate and poetic ways. (St.Cecilia is very blonde, rather passive but still very poetic.)

When you have finished those you might try, The Shewings of Julian of Norwich (that's a girl called Julian, not a mis-type), The Book of Margery Kempe, or even the Visions and/or letters and/or science and/or music of the astonishingly brunette Hildegard of Bingen.

These are the obvious ones; there are one or two more available to interested parties.

If there are any interested parties, do drop me a line.

Regards,

Miss A. Brightmore

Reading List and Harmony Point

A reading list for Aristasia! Oh, but there is so very much! Perhaps we should read some things together and discuss them.

Well, in any case: in Philosophy, one must read The Feminine Universe, but I expect you have. Next comes M. Guénon. Best to start with are Crisis of the Modern World and The Reign of Quantity. The late Dr. Ananda Coomaraswamy is wonderful on metaphysics and Art History. Titus Burckhardt also very good. On religions, The Transcendent Unity of Religion by Mr. Frithjof Schuon is excellent. The book was highly praised by Mr. T.S.Eliot and is influential on his later work. Also Mr. Schuon's books on Buddhism and Islam are excellent.

For lighter racinating reading, Mr. Wodehouse, as Miss Belleanne says, is excellent. Miss Agatha Christie is light but highly racinating for Altalian readers or for those who like a more intellectual approach to the detective genre, try Miss Dorothy L. Sayers, Miss Margery Allingham or Miss Josephine Tey. We are hoping soon to reproduce a couple of short stories by a current Aristasian writer — not Aristasian but set in a re-civilised Tellurian future such as that projected in The Female Disciplinary Manual. These are the Charming Mimsy Crystal stories about a blonde Inductive Detective of the later 21st century.

For an alternative to the Whig Interpretation of History (which has become incorporated into Pit popular history — insofar as the Pit still has any popular history) try the novels of Miss Jane Lane.

Annya's idea of philosophy There is so much more one might mention.

If you like the Abbey books, you may like the much less well-known works of Miss Katherine L. Oldmeadow. Curiously just yesterday I found a book by her in a fleem-shop. The jacket is rather tatty but otherwise the book is sound (physically as well as mentally!) I read Miss Oldmeadow's Princess Anne as a child and loved it dreadfully. Here is a rather awful photo of it. So sorry. We will try harder with our photography (sounds like something you write out fifty times, doesn't it)

We shall be starting an Elektra Department Store soon, called The Harmony Point (after the stockings - but also a Point of Harmony between Aristasia and Real Telluria). We shall be selling some real girls' books there (including the one above) and also will have a Penthouse Library and Roof Garden on the roof (where else?) where we shall reproduce some Essentialist and Secessionist texts of a not-specifically-Aristasian but very next-of-kin-to-Aristasia nature. All you pettes must come and discuss them in the garden. Being a Harmony Point it should be accessible to personae from Avendale School as well as ones from here. Let's give those boundaries-between-fantasy-and-reality a run for their money, shall we?

Things projected for the Penthouse Library include a review of The Constant Nymph, commenting on the book from a Secessionist/Essentialist standpoint, some Mimsy Crystal stories, possibly some stories of the charming confidence trickster Amelia Bingham (a sort of proto-Aristasian Robina Hood), a school story called Shelmerdine and various essays of Secessionist and Essentialist interest.

So, between the Book Department and the Library, The Harmony Point should help somewhat with your literary hungers.

Lindie

Reading in the Abbey

Oh what a lovely idea for a reading list. As it happens I am reading The Abbey Girls at Home by Miss Oxenham, a throughly up to date version and so racinating. I have never read any of her work before and I am delighted by it.

Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu sounds particularly interesting, although perhaps not a novel one would read on one's own late at night!

I would love any more suggestions,

with love,

Colette xx

Reading List?

Dear Miss Colette,

You ask a very pertinent question. Is there an Approved Aristasian Reading List? I haven't the least idea! Perhaps we should make one? I for one would be delighted to work my way through it beginning to end.

My personal recommendations would be schoolgirl stories by Miss E.J. Oxenham, Miss Angela Brazil, etc., and novels by P.G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, and, yes, Colette. Poetry by Christina Rossetti seems a must -- she was such a sweet and sheltered blonde, and what a pen she possessed!

I've heard that The Constant Nymph by Miss Margaret Kennedy is esteemed in Aristasia; at the very least, there's a cocktail bar named after it. What say you, Miss Miralene?

Anne Belleanne

P.S. Ooh, I forgot to mention Carmilla by J. Sheridan LeFanu (every blonde who reads it secretly hopes to be the victim of just such a brunette vampire), and Miss Nancy Mitford!

Saved by the Chocolates

"Printed in Blue because it's True" became a slightly difficult slogan, because the mixture of truth and fiction (or should I say between Ground Level Reality and other levels thereof) in Aristasia is so complex and so intimately interwoven that it really is often difficult to know what should be blue and what shouldn't. However, since there is so much School Fiction popping about at the moment, I thought I should pop in a perfectly true-on-the-most-literal-level account of Avenbridge School today.

Still Life with Tea-Things, Chocolate-Box ant the All-Salvatious Ribbon Today was Music Day. Miss Devenish was pleased about that because Thursday is the best day for music, being ruled by Sai Thamë, the Janya of Harmony. Cathy Lu (a relative of our Chinese Mistress, Lu Sin San) came to school and delighted us by bringing a lovely gold box of Belgian chocolates tied with pink ribbon. We had China tea in beautiful Arcadian Japanese cups and then proceeded to change into our uniforms.

Now, there are a few things you should know about me, and one of them is that I simply can't keep track of anything. My friend Miss Falconer used to say of me: "Give her one piece of paper and she will get it in the wrong order". Now as you may or may not know, blondes at Avenbridge wear a pink ribbon on their wrists as part of their uniform. And can I keep track of my blonde-ribbon? Can I levitate the Golden Temple of Rayapurh would be just as good a question, and in both cases the answer would be the same. So there I was, once again in uniform and hopelessly ribbonless, having already been punished for the same offence last week.

Then Em came to my rescue. "Use the ribbon from the chocolate-box," she suggested. Quelle idée très spiffity-ho, as the French say. Well, you can see the ribbon. the picture is a bit over-flashed as I took it a moment ago in the Castle Kitchen and I am an even worse photographer than my big sister Lindie, but there are the tea-things; there is the chocolate box looking rather too dark (it really is gold); and there is the ribbon, looking positively aetherial. It is that dark-pink diaphanous streak that passes into the front-left cup.

So I got Cathy to tie on the chocolate-ribbon and was saved. Music was rather nerve-making anyway as we had a long test including things I hadn't really heard of, like descending scales — but Miss Collerton explained the bits we hadn't learned. We really didn't know how we had done and were quite nervous of the result. I was so nervous that I kept asking things without putting my hand up, and at the end of the class I had a stroke of the strap on my hand. Only one, but it is still sore as I type this.

Another thing you might know about me is that I don't like being punished. People sometimes ask, and they might as well ask if I like being thrown off the roof of the Golden Temple of Rayapurh. I would go a fairly long way to avoid most punishments. People ask: "Is it an ambiguous love-hate relationship?" And all I can say is that if any one can find a lovey bit about a hard leather strap across the hand — well lucky old her. She probably hasn't had it.

On the other hand, discipline does mould and create our world and I have absolutely no doubt that it is good for me and I should be worse off in every way without it. And if that doesn't make sense to you, well, it doesn't make sense to me either. But, as I said at the beginning, this is real life, and real life doesn't make sense.

Cathy and I both got lines to write for missing out bits of our homework (purely accidentally I assure you). Now lines are another thing I don't like at all. I don't like the act of writing. I never have. I got a typewriter when I was ten and am inseparable from my ordinator now. Physical writing and bits of paper horrify me, and repetitive writing is my idea of a not awfully nice time. And that isn't putting it as strongly as I might. However, once again, of such things are worlds and realities and security compounded. And once again, don't ask me why. I don't make the Law.

So after school, more jasmine tea, more chocolate and fascinating discussions of the Metaphysics of Music, Plato and Pythagoras, listening to and discussing the music of Hildegarde von Bingen, the twelfth-century polymath and all-round genius and finally getting our test results. I got 94% and a merit — my second in a week, as I got one for my Latin test as well. Cathy, I have to report, got 100%.

So there, to balance all the recent fiction, is a down-to-earth, factual report of life in Avendale District near London.

Printed in blue, because every last word of it is true (it was a strain, but I did it).

Annya

Colette

Dear Miss Belleanne (and I must say what a lovely name that is!),

Alas and alack I am not the wise pen-mistress Colette, although perhaps she is my namesake. Her novels are so delightful, beautiful and charming that I can not but be flattered that you compare me with her. However, this has made me voice a question that I have had for some weeks now.

Like many pettes at the Cocktail Bar I adore reading, and I am lucky enough to have read several Aristasian novels and philosophical works. However, I do feel that my knowledge is somehow lacking, partly, I suspect, due to the fundamental lack of anything remotely resembling decent education in the Pit. I wonder if there are any literary or philosophical works that are considered essential reading? Colette, of course, would be among the novels one should read, but I wonder any pette has any other suggestions?

As for sneaky slingbacks, I find that many things have a habit of finding their way to my shopping basket without me even hinting at an invitation. This is particularly the case with shoes, nylons, beautiful boxes of chocolate and quite often very frivolous make-up. I'm not sure quite how one deals with such uninvited guests but to be the perfect hostess and make them feel as invited as you can. Which, of course, means purchasing them.

With love,

Colette x

For the full picture pop here.

Slingbacked Sneaks

Dear Miss Colette,

How exactly you divined the circumstances of my defeat by those slingbacked sneaks! I was buying a nice, simple, utilitarian blue-with-a-hint-of-mauve eyeshadow -- and then, whoosh! They'd tip-toed over from the shoe department and were On My Feet.

Oddly enough, I didn't find it hard to choose -- but if there had been a red pair as well there would have been chaos and confusion inside my fluffy blonde brain. I have a Red Slipper Fixation, you see. I've been advised to seek treatment, but it's much more fun not to.

I think I may have your picture on my website.

Anne Belleanne

Shoes

How sneaky shoes can be, ambushing you like that. I bet you had gone shopping for something practical. That always happens to me, off I go to buy a hardwearing blouse or jumper and what do I come back with but a light cotton party frock.

The pink ones are most marvellous and I can understand you going for the black as well (after all black does practically go with everything) but how could you overlook the green ones, or the yellow ones, or the orange ones or even the blue ones?

Oh I do think I'd not be able to make a choice between them.

Miss Colette x

Real-Life School

With all this talk of Avendale School in Elektraspace, I thought there might be just a touch of confusion (I mention no sex in particular) as to what things are real and which are fantasious (I suppose the real adjective is fantastical, but that does seem to imply something I didn't mean!

So, just to clarify, I am popping a picture of the actual classroom at the Embassy, which will be familiar to all girls in Avendale District as opposed to Avendale School. In the Elektra Role-Playing Game, the School is called Avendale and the town Avenbridge. In real life, the School is Avenbridge and the District, Avendale. Yes, I know what you're thinking: why do Aristasians have to be so complicated? But just think of one School as a sort of Elektra-mirror of the other and you won't go far wrong. I hope.

Anyway, here is the Schoolroom at Avenbridge in all its glory. many of you know it, and any of you living withing striking distance of London are very welcome to get to know it (just pop a note to miss_miralene at yahoo dot co dot uk).

By the way, don't be overawed by the arsenal of implements. Discipline does not play a central role in the school, and many school days pass without any punishment taking place. A good girl who does not need punishment (not always the same thing — but a girl fulfilling both these criteria) may never have it at all. The arsenal is just there so a mistress or prefect may choose exactly the right thing when it is needed.

The new classroom clock usually lives at the back of the room, but I think it looks perfect just there. However, Miss Collerton says that the purpose of the clock is for the mistresses to time their lessons, not for the girls to watch, and I have a feeling Miss Wardelle may agree with her, and since she is the headmistress her decision will be final in the Great Clock Controversy.

Just to give you an idea what goes on at the school, last week the following things happened:

And all these things took place in a week where there was no formal plenary meeting of the School. They all really took place in the classroom pictured here (or else on the very-nearby tennis courts).

I hope this dispels any confusion.

Lindie

Five (plus Emma?) go down to the Airwaves

I think live-recorded Bugle and Drum music clips and perhaps even Miss Serelique's input (as you suggest) would be a splendid idea to create some atmosphere in the Elektra world, if it could be done.

One consideration with the state of the art Quirinelle technology that was imported recently from Novaria, would be the file sizes and the time taken to download for non-broadband enabled viewers. This can perhaps be likened to the early television sets and lack of transmitters in some Aristasian regions, if any girls are thinking I am far too futuristic and imaginative for my own good, or wondering if I am indeed some kind of visionary inventress after all!

If you have read any of my previous postings you will see that my intellect and aspirations for fame, may only qualify me to portray 'George' from Enid Blyton's Famous Five books on the silver screen, which I would love to do. I trust there may be Drama classes in the Electra School and perhaps, a panto to aspire to?

Miss Emma B (Blonde one)

We are certainly planing drama at Avenbridge, which may be recorded (part of Miss Cadogan's Diction project). With these new microphone-link thingummies - who knows what may happen at Avendale?

Pink Things

Dear Nancy,

What fun you must have had, between the games and that cake you mentioned. We forgive you for not saving some for us because we understand all too well the needs of a growing blonde for pink icing and whatever lies beneath it.

I used to have a badminton racquet, too, although I'm so fearsomely uncoordinated that I never used it — in fact, I confess I only really wanted it because it was pink. I was nine... come to think of it, my shopping habits haven't changed much since then. I was ambushed by a pair of pink shoes just the other day and they turned out so well I had to have the black ones too!

Anne Belleanne

Badminton

Well, at Lindie's encouragement I thought I would write and let you know how the badminton tournament went.

The games season at my school has very strict regulations of when each game begins and ends. For Badminton, it begins with Spring and ends with Whitsun, after Whitsun, until our glorious summer hols, we play tennis and you can find me emitting yelps of horror as those rather fearsome white balls come whizzing towards me. I could tell you each and every other game season but I fear that this is just a lot of un-useful information, the sort of information that makes my brunette sister tease me. So I will stop here and move swiftly to the Badminton Tournament.

Well, I was selected to play for my house, and a very great honour it is too but one of which I was a little fearful as I never considered myself to be the quickest player! On the day of the tournament I was woken up by my dear friend Veronica who had managed to sneak a little piece of cake into our room, strictly against the rules of course, but Veronica insisted that I needed all the energy I could muster! And it was delish- all pink icing and cherries.

After breakfast I had to rush to get my kit on and the tournament began. First, as is tradition, the whole school sang a rather rousing version of our School song, and all the players stood up and shook hands with each other. The Lower School players played first. I was first and up against Mary Trevellian, a brunette no less from Charleston House. The game started with a fair bit of rallying, back and forth went the shuttlecock with neither of us wanting to break out and score the first point. However, this is a rather boring and tedious way to play badminton and something had to give. Mary sent the shuttlecock first to the back of the court, which I gallantly hit back and then she swooped down and hit it right by the net and it was all I could do to run there before the shuttlecock fell to the ground. Mary had scored the first point.

The game was knocked into a second gear, so to speak, and Mary managed to score five more points before I got my first point in. The cheers from my house were deafening but it was the little cheer from Veronica that really did it (or perhaps it was the reserve of energy from the cake!) and I managed to increase my score and I lost the game by only 7 to 11. The second game I came back with a score of 11 to 9 and Mary won the match in the third game by 8 to 11. As I went to the benches for my rest before my two other matches against Elsbeth Lindley and Eva Temple I heard cheers of 'Well Done Nancy' and 'Hooray for Sissinghurst' (Sissinghurst is my House).

I did tremendously well against Elsbeth, winning 2 games straight, 11 to 6 and 11 to 8 respectively. Eva was more of of a challenge as we are both similar in our strengths and weaknesses- it was almost like playing against oneself! Eva likes to hug the front of the court and flicks the shuttlecock with such dexterity that you never know which direction she is likely to take it. Her cunning won her the first game with a score of 11 to 7! But the second game I came back with all cylinders firing and made her run about the court like a mad thing and triumphantly won 11 to 4 in a very short game. The third, deciding game was hard pushed and we were neck and neck until the very end. We both got to 10 points and for those of you who aren't up on the rules of the game, this means that the game must be won by 13 points. It was a rather tense 10 minutes as we continued matching point for point until I broke through and got up to my 13th point. The applause was deafening and I
congratulated Eva heartily on what was a very enjoyable game.

All in all it was a wonderful tournament. I came joint second with Eva, Mary being first and Elsbeth third. After the Upper School played the whole school celebrated with our Tournament Party. This is held outside, with bunting and everything, and with the Old Girls in attendance. I wore a very pretty dress from Trent, mid calf with blue, red and white flowers printed all over it and little puff sleeves. And the food was beyond words! Salads and little tiny pies, cucumber and watercress sandwiches and gallons of Elderflower cordial and, of course, the best bit- Victoria Sponge with strawberries and cream. Yum!

Hope you enjoyed my little (ahem, sorry rather long) report. If I had any cake left I would of course share it with all the pettes here at the Cocktail Bar, but, erm, I seemed to have eaten rather more than my fair share.....

Nancy xx

Mis-reading the Twelve Thousand

Our esteemed Blonde Management informs us that in the first three months of the original Avendale School role-playing game twelve thousand posts passed through the group. She means, of course, twelve hundred. Blondes and figures! A marriage made in H— well, not Heaven, anyway.

Twelve hundred is still a pretty phenomenal achievement. I wonder if the new school will be as busy. It has certainly got off to a very promising start; and it's quality, not quantity that counts. The New Avendale certainly seems to have that.

One more comment before I fly. Em may have found the new wireless doorbell dull because she didn't need to use her equally wireless power drill to fit it, but I think it gives a certain cachet to the new Embassy.

What do you girls think?

Lindie

Dear Lindie et al,

I meant to write this afternoon, but I've spent all day feeling as though I've been run over by an omnibus. Two hours ago, I decided there was nothing for it but to seclude myself in the powder room to perform arcane blonde rituals with sacred potions with names like Gommage Eclat Express, Masque Force Hydratante, and Lait Fondant Pour le Corps. After that, and much business with pink-handled makeup brushes, I emerged, transformed, resolving to write letters, do the laundry, and give myself a rather spiffing French pedicure.

(Pause to apply second coat of pink nail varnish.)

Your wardrobe sounds tres charmante! (Apologies for all the Franglais sans accent marks; I'm not sure how to do them on this kind of ordinator). Do take more pictures so that we may admire your definite chic. Especially the short, military-cut red jacket, which sounds as though it would be just my sort of thing. I have an almost-brunette passion for crisp lines.

You seem to have extraordinary luck with woollies; everything I come across tends to be tainted by that Octopus we've been hearing so much about. I do have a deep purple merino wool twinset that does the business, and a few other sufficiently innocuous thingummies, but nothing I'm really pleased with (except possibly the soft grey pure cashmere one I, ah, borrowed from my mother before fleeing the country -- she didn't need it, let alone deserve it, believe me).

Gloves and hats are my great sadness. I have a few pairs of more formal gloves that I can only just squeeze my hands into, inherited from my late Nana who was a sartorial lioness, but for daywear, just two pairs of thin leather ones for winter: one red, one black. Where do you get your gloves? Is there some secret Aristasian Glove Emporium known to everyone but me? (Come to think of it, if there isn't one, perhaps there ought to be?)

In summer, I favour large, rather plain straw hats (I've just bought four for this year, which I plan to dress up a little with chiffon scarves and coloured ribbons, just as soon as I *find* some decent chiffon scarves and coloured ribbons -- I never know where to get things here in Culveria); in the winter, berets. I've seen pictures of my Nana in some absolutely darling little hats with veils and I wish she'd saved at least one or two of them.

(Pause to apply third coat of pink nail varnish -- why do things by halves?)

The jewellery question is easier; I don't have much, but what I do have came mostly from antique shops -- the prices are moderate for simple pieces with semi-precious stones, and if a pendant dates from the Victorian era, racination is pretty much guaranteed. And then there are dear Nana's pearls, the elegant finishing touch to any ensemble.

And to think they call Annya a chatterbox! I'll leave off here before I become unutterably dull. After all, I do have to run over to the school to see how everyone is getting on there. Isn't it exciting?

Anne Belleanne

Are there any accents in Charmante?

The Game's Afoot!

The 31st of May is a red-letter day. It will go down in history as the day Avendale restarted. Avendale School was an online Aristasian role-playing game which flourished about five years ago. In the first three months of its existence more than twelve thousand postings were made through the group (and one-liners weren't allowed).

It was an extraordinary literary roleplay venture which allowed girls interested in Aristasia from all over the world to experience "virtually" the life of an Aristasia schoolgirl. Standards were high and exacting, but the experience was deeply rewarding.

Today Avendale is re-starting as a sister school to Avenbridge which meets weekly near London, allowing Aristasian girls, near and far, to become part of the same School community.

If you would like to take part in the new Avendale, follow this link.

It could be the first step in the adventure of a lifetime.

The Blonde Management

Of cats and flight and Latin and things

The plural of octopus may well be octopodes (with four syllables no less!). Miss Serelique is almost never wrong about clever things like that. However, I think Miss Bellanne and Miss Brunette Brown will agree with me that 'Octopussies' is a significantly nicer plural for such a word.

I'm not much of a cat lover myself but I am currently missing Zoe — again! It's a funny old story, that one. One day she and her Nanny were happily getting on with business as usual. Then, the next day, Zoe's daily vitamins were infiltrated by foul-tasting malaria tablets. Then two days later they had to dress up in their intrepid clothes and pith helmets and go off looking for more tigers (that's the feline link with the first paragraph - clever, eh?). It was all terribly disorienting, I can tell you. But then, life with Zoe is always enough to make a girl's head spin.

Last time I saw Zoe, she was dressing up in her big sister's corset and fussing because she couldn't find any black stockings to go with it! At her age too! When she gets to sixteen (IF she EVER gets to sixteen!) she will have a collection of enough corsets and lip gloss to sink the Navy! (That is my other connection to other things - double clever, eh?)

Life at the Embassy proceeds as ever. I have fitted a new wireless doorbell - which wasn't very interesting since I didn't even need my drill (sigh!) and Annya had a timed Latin Test. She got some stupendous mark and a merit mark on the test paper. I suppose that's fair though since if she had got a bad mark she would have had at least six nice stripedy marks not on the paper! See, I am suffering another bout of Zoe withdrawal symptoms, I keep thinking about stripedies!

I expect you've all had enough of me now so I shall go and water the euphorbia. Be good, girlies,

Em x

APOLOGIES for the disappearance of Lindie's woolly yesterday and of the Avendale mini-site! Serious server problems caused the trouble. These have now been resolved. Lucky Lindie wasn't in it!

What to Wear on Top

Of course, if we are speaking about that Octupus, there is only one of him. He just has a lot of tentacles that make people think there are various oppositions and alternatives available in the Pit. That is why he is called the Octopus.

But on to more serious matters. What does one wear on top. For me there are three alternatives. In summer I often wear dresses, which solves the problem. With skirts I wear normally either blouses or woollies. I should love to show you some of my collection of blouses. I have some quite gorgeous ones. With black high-necked jumpers, which I love, I usually wear some sort of neclace. I found some utterly wonderful ones in a sale at the British Home Stores for only 6d each. (oh! Now that the Old Avendale mini-site is on-line you can find out about Aristasian money here) this particular jewellery is mostly in silver-coloured metal with pink stones, quite small, very chic and elegant. I have just snapped a not-very-good photo of one of the pieces on one of my jumpers to give you an idea of the effect.

I just wish I could show you some of my clothes and my new jewellery. I also found some wonderful Quirrie-style sun spectacles at a closing-down sale for another 6d.

And jackets, of course! I have lots of jackets which I wear with dresses, blouses and jumpers. They can look very smart. I found a short, military-cut red one with brass buttons recently which I love just this side of idolatry.

General advice to a beginner would be — swirly things can be lovely, but take care always to be neat. A crisp, up-to-date appearance is essential. One should look well-groomed and superior. The question one must constantly ask is, could some one looking like this (the image I see in my looking-glass) have stepped out of a real film?

Gloves also are important. In Trent no respectable girl leaves the house without hat and gloves. In Quirinelle this is softened to gloves only, hat being optional, and that is the rule we tend to follow. But gloves do often make the difference between looking genuinely up-to-date and looking like a bongo dressed up.

I do hope some of this is of help. Do go on firing questions. I am always happy to do my vest — er best.

Miss Lindie

Since we are on the subject of schools these days, Miss Lindie is a prefect at Avenbridge.

Lips, Powder, Flourbags and Octopuses

Dear pettes,

It's been YEARS since last I wrote — all I can say in my defence is that sharing an ordinator can be a tricky business for those of us who need to be in the right mood to deal with correspondence. Every time I dashed into the study, intending to pen a missive of staggering wit and verve, Someone Else had got there first and was playing some silly bongo game.

The only avenue left open to me for feminine expression was playing with (and adding to!) my make-up collection. Miss Lola, your words on the subject of lip gloss were a great comfort to me. It's wonderful to have support for my theory that, if Miss Monroe had had the opportunity to blind passers-by with the reflected light from her shiny, sparkly red lips, she would have done so on a daily basis.

Well, that really IS face-powder! And speaking of La Marilyn... the latest addition to my cabinet of delights is a powder compact by an undistinguished, inexpensive brand named Physician's Formula. Have a quick look at the picture and you'll see why.

The Someone Else who so ungallantly got between Moi and Moi's Mailbox has used the turning season as an excuse to break out just such a pair of Johnny Octopus-inspired old flour bags as you describe. Quelle horreur! But at least it gives me a chance to mention something fun I read once, that the plural of octopus isn't "octopi," the way most people think it is, but "octopuses," because its root was Greek rather than Latin!

I'm wearing my very longest, swirliest polka-dotted skirt (complete with frills!) today, just to balance the atmosphere around here. I believe it was originally intended to be worn by a dancer of some sort, but anything this good for twirling just has to be up-to-date. It's a hand-me-down from Miss Taggart, like most of my best skirts (although I found the shimmery dark green one on my own, and the floor-length black satin). It's the top half of me I really struggle with -- what sort of thing do you girls wear?

Oh! And there's a school to think of, isn't there? I dreamed I was a prefect and was taking tea with the headmistress in a very pretty garden, with petunias, but I don't expect that's terribly helpful. What comes now? Are there wheels turning within wheels and that sort of thing? Is there anything I can do, besides offer my fifteen lipsticks and eighteen lip glosses for everyone to try on while we chat?

Anne Belleanne

Miss Serelique tells us that some people hold that the proper plural is octopodes — pronounced as four syllables. Come to think of it, Miss Serelique has,I think, the distinction of being the only person ever to appear at Avendale Elektra-school with exactly the same name and persona that she wears "on the ground" here at Avendale District

Question — and Answer

I like Em's sugestion for a bugle and drum corps. One might, however, ask, if it is to be an Elektra one, what is the point of a musical corps that will never be heard.

Answer: why should it not be heard? That was another question, but you know what I mean. No you don't. I haven't told you. What I am asking is, why not — if we can manage to scrape up a bugle and drum — record Miss Brown and Em doing their stuff? Come to that, why not have recorded lessons in Miss Serelique's dulcet groans. Just a joke — the groans I mean, not the idea. The idea is a good one, don't you think?

Annya

The Geography of a naturally Very Blonde Schoolgirl

First of all I'd like to offer my apologies to 'Miss Brunette Em', and an admission that having not met you or not detecting your obvious brunetteness from previous posts, I inadvertently called you a Blonde! Having read more and indoctrinated myself with my new Aristasian Life daily, I can now more clearly recognise some obvious traits that distinguish the Aristasian sexes. I am glad to say I am very blonde, in fact i'm probably heading for Albino status with some of the things I have been credited for recently!. However, in saying this (and to ward off any complaints from my blonde peers), I am in no way implying that blondes are any less intelligent than brunettes, it is just that I am more probably athrowback to the classic Pit characterisation of the'Dumb Blonde'!

One example was at my previous 'School' (I will refer to this as a role play Drama situation, don't ask!), that was filmed prior to my arrival in the Girls Town Cocktail Bar. It was a Geography lesson and we were studying a passage of text on Glaciers in a Tellurian Hemisphere (Northern Europe, in fact). On this particular day my mind was awash with all kinds of exciting thoughts and looking ahead to new life in Quirinelle, so much so that I was looking at the text before me, listening to the Mistress's voice but not actually digesting any of the content. The Mistress, probably noticing I was not giving my full attention suddenly asked "Emma, where is Northern Europe"? Without thinking and totally unscripted (although as a group we never follow a script, just a story outline), i replied instantly, "At the bottom of the paragraph"! The words' Northern Europe' did indeed appear in the text at the bottom of the paragraph but to make matters worse, as the whole class laughed around me I still didn't think i'd said anything wrong!

Another example of my saying what comes into my head rather than thinking "Hey, this may actually get me into serious trouble" was another Geography Lesson that included a historical element (not my best subject!). We were studying the origins of old English counties in Telluria, as a basis for identifying how the regional boundaries of Aristasia may have been created. In advance of the lesson we were asked to research our family tree and trace the names and background of our Ancestor’s county, so that we could later answer questions in the classroom. The Mistress spent an age reading a long passage of text on the origins and progression of the Counties and within this, gave a detailed explanation about how in 1899, the county of London was formed from the city and parts of the surrounding counties of Kent, Middlesex and Surrey.

I missed all of this due to the fact I was daydreaming and studying my friend Shirley’s (who was sitting in front of me), new hairdo. I had also unfortunately, not done any research the previous evening, and had only remembered where my Ancestors were born, but not noted which county it was in. All i had with me were some notes from my Ancestors' birth certificate records. When asked which of the counties my Ancestors came from (that were all displayed on a diagram we each had in front of us and I should have at least been following during the lecture), I replied “Haringey”?! The Mistress looked at me furiously, and in my desperation I followed this up with, “Hornsey”? The other girls were in hysterics, the Mistress was not amused, and for me it was another trip to see the Headmistress that day.

I have learnt from this and will be on my best behaviour in any form of Avendale School I am able to be involved with. I am never deliberately naughty in School (unlike some i have met who were more concerned with discipline than learning for real), but the two examples above will perhaps give you an idea of my natural state and i will work hard to overcome this. Since arriving in Quirinelle and having read outlines of Avendale life too, I feel very at ease with the high standards expected and am genuine in my attempts to develop myself in your company.

Miss Emma B - Very Blonde xx

PS: I love the idea of a Drum and Bugle Corps and can already imagine my very brunette namesake (Em) blowing her own bugle at the helm (Hee, Hee...sorry!!)

Not deliberately naughty, perhaps, but after you were told to take care over capitalising your first person pronouns and proofread your postings, look how many you have still left uncapitalised! Don't let it happen again.

More Avendaley Thoughts

The headmistress of Avenbridge raised the subject of mistresses and the necessity for having them — while pupils may be relatively easy to recruit, mistresses are another matter. I should just point out that while mistresses are indeed necessary, they are less crucial to an Elektra school than to an on-the-ground one. At Avenbridge lessons are a central activity whereas in Avendale roleplay among the girls was more central. One or two good prefects are very necessary though.

Girls may be interested to know also that there was a successor to Avendale called Kissingbrook. It was much less well known and generally "quieter" and lacked any "star players" — but it indicates that an Elektra school can operate on various levels of activity. I mention these facts to assure our fair Management Pettes that a huge organisational undertaking is not necessarily required.

Karen

Thank you. We are very seriously considering the new school now, and to that end we have put up the old Avendale mini-site so that girls may take a look. This may give a better idea to new girls what Avendale was like.

Bugle Girl in Blonde Company Rumpus

It has lately been reported, by certain (probably blonde) persons, that Miss Margueritte Collerton (A.K.A. "Em") was lately a member of "Company Blonde". The management wish to state catagorically that Miss Collerton is in fact VERY brunette (Annya calls her and Miss Diana, "Super-brunettes" in fact). The management apologises for any embarassment caused (past - or future if Miss Diana gets her hands on this information) to Miss Collerton.

Retractions notwithstanding, an interesting idea has been raised. If we can start up an Elektraspatial school, might we also have and Elektraspatial Bugle Company? I thought a military company might be best with just one bugler, but decided the blondes would start getting all precious about their fingernails and complexions so I have placated myself with the bugle idea.

Hold on a dog-gone minute though! I seem to have some recollection that in Culveria and a few other places, they have military officer training courses/clubs IN schools. If we have school, may we have a Drum and Bugle Corps? Miss Brown plays drums and I can manage a bugle (rustily but recoverably) I think.

Now all we shall need is a uniform. How about this one? These girls are currently performing for tellurian audiences outside the Empire but they have copied the Andrews Sisters in most ways, so they ought to be sound enough to have their picture here.

What do you think? I bet Miss Wardelle would be happy enough about it all. Oh go on, say we can!

Miss Brunette Em x

Your title sounds like a headline from The Looking Glass. And the pictures would not be out of place there either. I wonder how much a subscription costs...

Amy Johnson, for a bag of Licorice Allsorts

I would like to endorse Em's recommendation of Telegrams Canada, it really is Fabuliscious. Some of the tunes remind me of the rationing and community closeness we had when our fighting girls were at war in Telluria.

I am very flattered to be referred to as a 'highly intelligent lady inventress', but as a 16 year old schoolgirl (or the scatty, immature adult my blonde and brunette friends will know in the 'Real' world) and, as a GT new girl, I do not feel I am worthy of such a grand compliment. I have a catalogue of mishaps and downright bad common sense moments that I am often reminded of, and am regarded by most (usually my elders) as being impulsive, spirited and with a vivid imagination. I cannot therefore seriously align myself with real inventresses such as Alexandra Grace Bell, Samantha Morse or Marie Curie just yet.

Incidentally, who invented the sky car? Was it ever road tested by Amy Johnson? My blonde friend Shirley seems to think it was and we have a bag of licorice allsorts riding on the answers. I know it is improper for young ladies to wager, but I am sure these questions may come up in a future Aristasian History examination.

Shirley does not unfortunately, have such articulate and learned friends such as your good selves to help her with the answers, and any time saved in my research means more time to listen to Telegrams Canada tonight.

Thanks again Em, you really are the Boogie Woogie Bugle Girl in Company Blonde!

Emma B

Em! In Company Blonde! Now I've heard everything!

Aboard the HMS Censor-ship

My dear, dear friends,

On this subject of censorship and what might be suitable for consumption within the Empire; I have recently found a marvelous wireless station that I should like to recommend to any pette who loves the wireless. If you go to 'Live 365' you can sign up to listen to all sorts of wireless programmes. Lots of the stations on their list would seem to be highly virulent forms of the newly named 'pit virus' ( does the highly intelligent lady inventress wish to have it called the Emmarus Bemmarosa or something?). However, if you are careful and look under the category "oldies" you will find a station called, "Telegrams Canada". I thought I might try it for a while and have been listening avidly for over a week already!

No virus in this wireless! One night last week I heard Treasure Island just as though I had a whole troupe of actors to read me a bedtime story! As I write this, I am listening to a comedy programme about a Kadorian fool being drafted in to the Navy

Dear Miss Miralene,

Your lavender "but" matches my lavender skirt so well that I feel more than qualified to respond to your Not-So-Quickettie Reply.

You're quite right; Reality has much to answer for and it must not be let off the hook! Perhaps I didn't express myself very well in the note I passed you. I meant to say something along the lines of we should use the Real school as a starting point for the Elektraspatial one. Descriptions of events at the Real school would be clearly marked as such, and whatever goes on in Elektraspace would grow naturally out of them.

For instance, when responding to a chronicle of the Tamara expedition, we would continue the real event as a fictional one — and pretend that we'd all been lucky enough to attend! -- but we'd know perfectly well who had actually been there and who was imagining it. Would that be a clear enough demarcation between the two branches of the school, do you think? The school would have two histories intertwined, feeding each other but still with a certain separation. I think it could be made to work, if details of Real happenings were posted and replied to promptly... and as I said before, it might be considered good homework for the girls who took part in them.

Or it might not be, but you see how hard I'm trying!

Another matter has been puzzling me for some time. How do Aristasian households reconcile their preference for racination with the undeniable fact that they must import certain things from the Pit? Put simply, when one has seceded, whatever does one do about make-up?

Aflame with curiosity and addicted to lip gloss,

Anne Belleanne

My Avendale musings

I am a new girl, but not the 'absolute new one' that 'Chatterbox' Annya describes, so I hope I still warrant being chaperoned around the school by a Prefect whilst I am finding my feet?

I recently left a tranch of cyber chatters in the pit after receiving some self-indulgent and rather vulgar approaches, so would be delighted to escape to a very respectful sanctuary where pit players are banned.

I am a huge Marilyn Monroe fan and my most prized possession is her autograph, which my Aunt Abigail managed to get when she was working as a secretary for Hulton Press in London. I would love to watch G*ntl*m*n Prefer Blondes, Niagara or any other Aristasian film that is deemed suitable for a girl of my tender years (16).

I may not be blessed with the intellect and imagination to contribute as vividly as other impressive writers, but hope my time at the Elektraspace School will improve my literary submissions beyond recognition.

Please treat this as my expression of interest in joining as a pupil. I look forward to receiving further details in due course.

Emma B

Of course, we aren't yet certain there will be a School, but we shall certainly give you details if and when there is. It is true that there are some impressive writers about these parts — but please don't let that put any of you off. Every girl who aspires to Aristasian ideals should feel very free to join in at Girls' Town and in the new School (if and when). You are all welcome. And don't be put off by this talk of vetting and the "wrong sorts" — we are talking about the Pit types Emma mentions. Any genuine girl with a real interest in Aristasia — however new and inexperienced — will always be made welcome.

Passing Notes in the Cocktail Bar

19th May

Anne Belleanne

FURTHER NOTES ON A NEW ELEKTRASPATIAL SCHOOL

Advantages

5) It would be awfully fun!

Questions and Suggestions

1) Such a project requires strong and active core players. Who would these be?

I know how green I am compared to you other ladies, but I should like to be as involved as possible, and I'm confident that my writing skills are up to the challenge...

2) Continuity between Aristasia-on-the-Ground and Aristasia-in-Elektraspace: how would this work? Would we have two branches of the same school? Two separate schools linked? If so how linked?

3) Feeding the Site: The School should help to feed the site, just as the site will feed the School. This is connected with the central principle that all branches of Aristasia feed and are fed by one another (sometimes called internouriture). Theory is necessary to practice; practice feeds the development of theory. Each aspect of the Aristasian whole is mutually supporting and interlinked.

Again, I'm too green to know how the "real" school operates, but as the lines between fiction and non-fiction are already so pleasantly blurred in Aristasia, why not say it is the same school, but some of the students telecommute from elsewhere? Describe the classes on the school's mailing list as clearly as possible, perhaps offer a way for the Elektraspatial participants to send in work, and have mistresses mark it as though it was by the students they see face to face?

As many of the girls from the "real" school as possible should be able to participate in the Elektraspatial school: there, if I'm not mistaken, you have your core players! Count it as part of their homework, if you will. It might be very improving for them to develop their creative writing.

4) Security: the new School must have a much more careful policy on admissions, avoiding incursions by the Wrong Sort!

It might be an idea not to admit any new student who is not reasonably well known to at least one other. Of course, if some stranger wished to join in, she could be thoroughly vetted by an admissions committee, but in the beginning at least it would probably be only girls who post here often enough to be known.

I hope this is of help to you. I only wish I could solve everything all at once, and see foundations laid for the new school immediately!

20th May

Annya Miralene

QUICKETTIE REPLY

Excellent suggestions. You are clearly a girl of resourcefulness and talent, which is just as well, because you will probably have to do some administration. Don't worry. You won't be green for long (Wendy's coloured pens! I love them!)

I am hoping the new school will include current Avenbridge girls, old Avendale girls, perhaps some old Avenbridge girls (Hello Nancy!) and of course new girls like you. I think most of the School will initially be people we know or people whom people we know know (does that make sense? And should it be "whom" or "who"?) But we shall be open to absolute new girls too. Just rather careful. I think we can keep the sitch in hand quite easily. I am thinking of a system whereby new girls are vetted by a current member and introduced by her.

Treating the two schools as one is an attractive idea. The main drawback is that it is likely to become very unclear to readers who are not participants what is happening "on the ground" and what in Elektraspace. Now, from one point of view blurring the distinction is fun and part of the Merry Aristasian Way of treating Reality with the impertinence it so richly deserves BUT (and a lavender but too, for added emphasis) part of the strength of this is to make it very clear that some of this is Really Happening in real schoolrooms, real common rooms — and soon real soda fountains and (perhaps) cocktail bars. Letting the audience think it is just Elektraspace fantasy would be letting Reality off the hook far too lightly, if you see what I mean.

So we need it to be clear when we are talking about things that actually happened "on the ground". That apart, the deeper the integration and internouriture between the two Schools or two parts of School the better.

As to feeding the Site, I think (this is only one thing of course) we need to put highlights or Best-ofs on the site fairly often, so our literary and life-theatre flights are shared with the World (well, the Town, anyway).

And talking of internouriture, here is a marvelous example. You will have seen the Llangollen Gallery at Belladonna (yes, that is a hyperlink, not just me messing about with pens again). And you will have seen the Blonde Prefect Annalinde's piece on Tamara de Lempicka — which I think is about the only time any one has put in "print" anything about Aristasian art-neo aesthetics as they relate to the Great Tamara though they have often been talked about on the ground). Well, very soon Avenbridge school and friends (hello again Nancy! And others I hope!) will be going real-ly and live-ly to a real live Tamara de Lempicka Exhibition at the Royal Academy.

The ideas expressed by Annalinde should be discussed. And perhaps you Elektra-pettes (to revive an old expression - who remembers it and where it comes from?) could look at some Tamara pictures too, perhaps post them and discuss them, become part of the tamara Expedition virtually.

Some of you will remember when girls from widely scattered geographicals all arranged to watch G*ntl*m*n Prefer Blondes at much the same time and then discussed it at the Old Cocktail Bar (you'll find the discussion somewhere in the Cocktail bar Archives at Belladonna). Well, perhaps we can do some more things along these lines. What do y'all think?

So it wasn't a quickettie after all. Chatterbox Annya strikes again. Ah well!

Nancy to Lindie

Thanks for the good wishes for the badminton- I am rather nervous! I'll let you know how it went- it's only a week away! How is your tennis going? I must say that although I do enjoy badminton I find tennis rather hard, I think the ball just bounces along and flies through the air with such terrific speed!

I'm not sure what's more exciting, the Tamara exhibition or the cocktails. I suppose it will depend on whether Miss Wardelle will be setting any essays afterwards! But having cocktails will mean we get to try some of Miss B's cocktails. Talking of cocktails, did I ever tell you about my little blonde sister Coco and her champagne incident?

Estella (my older brunette sister) was having a soiree and we younger girls where banned from attending (this was shortly before Estella went of to University) and all the grown ups had decided that Estella was old enough to be the hostess on her own. Well half way through the evening little Coco trotted down the stairs clutching Rabbit, all mop-top curled and sleepy as she had been awakened by the noise. She trotted in to the party and one of the blondes saw Coco and took to her straight away, picking her up and fussing her no end. Well, things came to a head when Coco said she was thirsty and one of the very silly blondes decided to give Coco her glass of champagne and of course Coco drank it all up and after a few minutes started to complain about her 'wobbly head'. Poor Coco. Mama, of course, was furious and needless to say Estella was punished as she should have seen what was happening, being the hostess and everything.

I am certainly looking forward to meeting your friend Em, and seeing all the girls old and new! I must say, your sister Annya's idea for an Elektraspace Avenbridge is a jolly good idea.

Lots of love,

Nancy xx

More Avendaley Thoughts

It isn't a daydream, most dear Miss Belleanne, but it is not definite that it can be done. Let me put forward some thoughts in note form. Hold on — just let me fetch a piece of school paper

19th May

Annya Miralene

NOTES ON A NEW ELEKTRASPATIAL SCHOOL

Advantages

1) Last time we did it, it created an Elektraspatial Community more effectively than any other on-line venture.

2) It would create a way for Geographically Distant sisters to become much more fully a part of Aristasia.

3) It would further Aristasian Education and give pettes an outlet for some of their talents.

4) It could help to create a continuum between Aristasia-in-Telluria and Aristasia-in-Elekraspace by somehow linking the real-life Aristasian school in Avendale District and the projected school in Elektraspace.

More advantages? Open to the Floor (that's you girls).

~~Problems~~ Considerations

1) Primarily time. These projects can be very time-consuming. Here at Avendale we have an on-the-ground District to organise, a real school, a site, not to mention the business of living a seceded life, organising the Homesteads and surviving economically in secession. Others no doubt are very busy too.

2) Avendale attracted some unattractive characters toward the end!

Any other onsiderations? Over to you!

Questions and Suggestions

1) Such a project requires strong and active core players. Who would these be?

2) Continuity between Aristasia-on-the-Ground and Aristasia-in-Elektraspace: how would this work? Would we have two branches of the same school? Two separate schools linked? If so how linked?

3) Feeding the Site: The School should help to feed the site, just as the site will feed the School. This is connected with the central principle that all branches of Aristasia feed and are fed by one another (sometimes called internouriture). Theory is necessary to practice; practice feeds the development of theory. Each aspect of the Aristasian whole is mutually supporting and interlinked.

4) Security: the new School must have a much more careful policy on admissions, avoiding incursions by the Wrong Sort!

More thoughts — well, where do constabels live? Letsby Avenue!

About That Idea

Dear Miss Miralene,

Let me pledge unto you and any future school all the time you could possibly imagine.

Well, perhaps that's just the tiniest exaggeration, but you know what I mean.

Miss Taggart happens to be one of my housemates (hence my address at belladonna.org) -- I believe she is in one of her frequent phases of Never Writing Again, and in any case she is out of town at present, but upon her return I shall bring up the subject and hint heavily that her participation would be much appreciated...

She and I met not long after Avendale closed, and I was so saddened by missing it that she and I wrote a little story of our own, set after the Perfect Prefect's graduation. I shan't share it because it ended up so overwritten — but it was such fun.

I shall go to bed tonight dreaming of characters I might create. Please, Miss Miralene, say this isn't just a daydream!

Anne Belleanne

Avendale School — an Idea

I should like to put forward an idea. It was inspired partly by Miss Anne Belleanne who said that she was sorry to have heard about Avendale School too late to become part of it. Some of you, of course, have not heard of Avendale School at all, so I shall tell you that it was an on-line Aristasian school. A cross between a role-playing game and an educational group. It brought out the best in a number of players and helped to forge a very active Elektraspatial community of Aristasians in a way no other venture has done. We really were "living with one another" in Elektraspace as if in a real school, so far as that is possible.

The group was very active — with I believe over 500 postings a month — but also rather short lived. The reasons for this were many: among others the fact that several key players were going through real-life experiences that preoccupied them at the same time and the increasing incursion, toward the end, of less desirable players most of whom we suspect (and many we now know for sure) were actually em-ee-en.

However, while it worked it worked well. It is possible that we could do something along similar lines, learning from our past problems and avoiding them in the future.

If a number of potential players are interested, we could consider something along Avendale lines. Miss Eve Taggart in particular was a very central, important and I must say extraordinarily talented player. If she were interested that would make the idea very much more feasible.

A problem that must be considered is that this was a very intensive and time-consuming activity, so we shall need to consider whether at least a core of players is willing to devote a lot of time to it, or whether we should aim at a somewhat cut-down version of Avendale. I suspect a minimum commitment of one hour a week per player might suffice.

I have a few ideas and comments on what might be done to make the new venture more durable than the original, but first I should like to ask: is any one here potentially interested in such a project?

Annya Miralene

To Miss Brightmore

Dear Miss Angeline Brightmore

Thank you, for your kind reply. Though I am a philologist — among other things — by education, I have no such knowledge of Sumerian or Akkadian language, history and culture as to speak with academic authority in these fields, so I am afraid I would only make an impostor and a fool of myself if I tried to lead you here.

When I was able to direct your attention to Enheduanna, it is only because I have a curious mind that finds enjoyment from looking into many —alas, sometimes far too many! —different subjects on the way to its proper destinations. It was during one such excursion that I suddenly caught sight of Enheduanna. Since then, I have been inventing all sorts of excuses for returning to her as often as possible amidst my daily intellectual duties. At this stage I am primarily using Elektraspace sources; among them also what seems to be a useable bibliography, although the author makes some — seen from an Aristasian point of view —rather doubtful comments on some of the works. The Elektraspace sites are:

1. The Enheduanna Research Site: www.angelfire.com/mi/enheduanna/index.html

2. The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature of Oxford University: http://www-etcsl.orient.ox.ac.uk/

3. A quick reference to Sumerian Mythology can be found at: http://members.bellatlantic.net/~vze33gpz/sumer-faq.html, where you can also find a link to a Sumerian Lexicon.

I also want to thank the Girl's Town Editress for a very kind and encouraging comment. Unfortunately, the work that keeps me busy for the moment is of little relevance to a project of developing an Aristasian Poetics. Some years ago, I had the opportunity to publish a small article, which, from an aesthetical point of view, made some critical remarks on the axiom of the arbitrariness of the sign of Saussurean linguistics, along with a few suggestions concerning the relation between metaphysics and aesthetics. However, this is a small article, and I fear it would not be of much help in the aforementioned project.

Jannie

Oh, what a night

Aunt Abigail allowed my best blonde friend Shirley to come for supper and stay with us last night. We had the most wonderful time pasting newspaper and magazine cuttings of our favourite actresses into our scrapbooks. I started my latest book about six months ago and adore Ingrid Bergman, who has taken pride of place in the inside cover and in the centrefold.

After a hot drink we were told to go upstairs to bed, but as I hadn't seen Shirley for ages I really wanted to stay awake until we dropped, there was so much to talk about. We waited until we heard Aunt Abigail's last footstep on the stairs and her bedroom door closing behind her, before starting to whisper and trying not to giggle, about some of the strange characters from Tellurian folklore that Aunt Abigail had told us about earlier that evening.

Shirley is like myself, a perpetual risk taker. She informed me that she had bought "a few rations" along for the midnight feast we about to begin, unbeknown to her that I had very recently had my last warning about my behaviour and this may be a feast too far!

I imagined a couple of boiled sweets and perhaps an oatmeal biscuit or two, but my cavalier friend managed to pull off the most ingenious act of smuggling this side of Quirinelle. In true blonde fashion she disregarded all consequences of getting caught. How she managed to sidle past Aunt Abigail with three huge bags of doughnuts, jelly babies and a bottle of lemonade is beyond me.

We gorged ourselves deep into the night and ate by torchlight, until we had run out of conversation, and our tiredness turned eloquent speech into a slurred stream of meaningless muttering.

This morning as I write for you, I realise I had fallen asleep with my face covered in jam and sugar. I am moments away from getting washed and dressed into my school uniform to go downstairs for breakfast, before my first lesson of the day with Aunt Abigail, who, to remind you, is tutoring me at home. Shirley is still asleep, but I must wake her and warn her that her hair is a tangled web of lemonade and three shades of Jelly Baby. Her Mother will be coming to collect her in half an hour and if Shirley is not looking as pristine as expected, Miss Browning will surely be looking for a blonde scapegoat to blame, for leading her 'oh so perfect' daughter astray!.

Happy Days!

Emma B

To Nancy from Lindie

A while since we've seen Peach in Girls' Town Dear Nancy,

I have done a very silly blonde thing and deleted your letter accidentally, so I am not sure of your current address. Can you please let me know it when you read this?

Oh, the very best of luck with your badminton, and congratulations on being selected. I am playing tennis here at Avenbridge, but I don't think I am in danger of being selected for a team any time soon — though my friend Em played for her last school, and is really good.

I know what you mean about the Confusion of Verbs. I am doing Latin now and there is some talk of doing German too — and some Old English grammar. I just can't imagine how my mind will cope with all the languages at once!

Yo are right about the ancients having a messy time of it — though luckily there hasn't been much mess in my studies yet. Chaps, I am afraid. They do seem to spend a lot of their time biffing and cutting one another up in any era. Thank Heaven for Aristasia!

The Tamara exhibition visit will be in June, I think and I am sure you will be invited. In fact I think Miss Wardelle is going to let any new girl come and meet us there — or at the cocktail-and-jazz bar afterwards. It will be a nice easy way for girls to meet us in London who have been a bit shy to get to Castle Mushroom so far. It will also be a chance for you to meet some of the girls who have joined the school since you were here — especially Em — and Miss Wardelle herself, though one can't call her a girl!

It will be just wonderful to see you again. I am really looking forward to it.

Lots of love,

Lindie xXx

Letter from an ex-Avenbridge Girl

Dear Lindie,

What a shockingly bad correspondent I have become. I am sure Mama would be most disapproving. I can only say, in my poor defence, that it is since being sent to board. They do tend to fill your days up with all sorts. I have just been selected for my House in our up coming Inter-House Badminton Tournament which is rather nerve racking. I do so wish to do well for the House — it would be rather terrifying if I didn't. I just couldn't let the House down. Fingers crossed for me!

My French, I am afraid, has been rather neglected of late. I was doing fairly well- I even managed to crack the passé composé and the imparfait — however I am afraid that games have rather taken over and I am driving the French mistress mad. It's not that I don't apply myself, honestly, it's just that, well, sometimes all those verbs just muddle in my head and it's just so much easier to think about badminton or the new dance I have just learned. I am sure that if I don't improve soon I will be sent to the Headmistresses office and I really do not wish that to happen so I ought to pull my socks up.

It would be absolutely thrilling to visit you and Castle Mushroom. How exciting to have a Cathedral Arch cupboard and a pink room all to yourself. It would be rather jolly to go to the Tamara de Lempicka exhibition with you and the school. I think your idea of a letter to the head is marvelous. Miss Cleethorpes is rather admiring of Avenbridge.

Gosh, I read in Girlstown that you are to be taught Old English and Classics. I read that with a mixture of envy and relief! It sounds like such a thrilling subject but I am sure that the first mention of death and blood those ancients did have a rather messy time of it all) and I'd be on the floor having an attack of the vapours!

Well, I ought to dash as I hear the bell calling me to my needlework class and Miss March is rather strict on time keeping.

I do hope you are well and perhaps I can wangle a few minutes to pop to Girlstown!

Much love,

Nancy xx

Angels and Omnibuses

What I don't understand, mesdames, is how I can be in your class and in detention at the same time. There is a quality known, in the technical language of theology, as agility: that is, the ability to be in more than one place at one time. That quality, however, is only possessed by the holy Janyati, and while I welcome your kind comments on my "eruditeries", the implication of this is beyond flattery and fear I must demur.

Actually, I have to confess that most of the said eruditeries were actually written by my big sister Annalinde who uses my post box because she is too lazy to get her own. She is also too lazy to proofread her eruditeries and should certainly spend the whole weekend in Detention, but she won't as the only one who ever gets Saturday School seems to be me.

Anyway it is not only Elektragroups that are like buses, but also New Girls — none in Girls' Town for approximately fifty years and then two in the same week. So 'normous welcomage to Emma and Miss Belleanne.

To Miss Belleanne I should like to say this: i can see why one might be shy. The Cocktail Bar these days seems at times like the exclusive stamping ground (or rather delicate stiletto-clicking ground) of Avendale District and Avenbridge School. Well, it is true that most of our current contributors know each other and are part of the District (though other Avendale girls hardly contribute at all — naming no particular names). But that doesn't mean that girls like you from Distant Geographicals are not absolutely one hundred per centum welcome (can you tell I am doing Latin at school?)

Girls' Town is and was always meant to be an Elektra-community. Some of us are lucky enough to be part of an on-the-ground community too, and there was always meant to be a continuity between the two communities.

But you girls who can't get to Avendale for whatever reason — and you in particular, dear Miss Anne Belleanne — do please join in and don't be shy. All us Avendale girls were new girls once and the only way one ever stops being a new girl is by joining in. Every one is very jolly and friendly and really we are nothing to be frightened of at all — except my big sister Annalinde when she has her prefect's badge on. But don't worry about her: nobody else does.

With more welcomy love,

Annya

Elektragroups are Like Buses...

. . . You don't see one for ages and then two come along at once! The Reality Dawns Elektragroup has been founded to discuss ideas concerning secession from the Pit and the re-establishment of civilised life on earth! It is not an Aristasian group and includes em-ee-en. Having said that, it seems to be attracting interest from a number of Aristasians and contains some extremely interesting contributions from one of our favourite Aristasian schoolgirls. How precocious young Annya is growing!

But darling — don't you think you should proofread your eruditeries before posting them? You would certainly be in detention if you were in our class!

The Blonde Management

The atmosphere beneath is languorous?

Dear Blonde Management and Girls,

For all you Hardy Perennialists - Hardy-ha-ha. Oh dear. Sorry! I have just arrived here by Sky Car, tired, bemused and brain dead after reading Tamara Hardy's descriptions of the town of Marlott in the second chapter of 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles'. My Aunt has told me I must read a chapter a week, many times over, because I will be tested on each detail as a part of my home education. Only when I am truly ready and refined to a suitable degree, will she recommend me as a prospective applicant for Avenbridge School.

However, I suspect I may never be ready or accepted to join until as she says I "have acquired the poise, manners and behaviour necessary to belong to such a distinguished establishment", of which she was once a Prefect I understand? Perhaps she is right, I am not a Swan yet and may forever be a Cinderella or Ugly Duckling.

Back to Tamara Hardy, who wrote "The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine".

Words fail me, but I was not helped by forgetting to pack my dictionary for the trip. What could this mean in Westrenne? A mere rough translation will save me from receiving truly undeserved discipline from my Aunt if any of you can help me? Surely I won't be accused of cheating, isn't this research and using my initiative?

Not content with my having to decipher and imagine the beauty behind these sentiments, and then prepare myself to translate it for my Aunt under Anastasian Officer Class type interrogation, I have just walked into the Cocktail Bar and I realise I have so much to learn about my own world.

Am I a blonde? As the Aristasia Q & A's state, I will know myself in time. I am a birth brunette (with black as the night locks) but with a hasty, impulsive, wilful and petulant temperament (so I am told — it is all lies), I feel that I'm a truer blonde but hope I will know sooner rather than later.

Anyway, this is my first letter and I feel very much a junior girl on her first day but hope with hours of reading through our historical archives, and spending more time in your literary company that I will be able to offer something more worthwhile.

Emma B
xx

A Response and Request for Assistance

Dear Miss Jannie,

Thank you for your response to my note. I should indeed be extremely interested in any references you are able to furnish me with in regard to the literary and/or philosophical suggestions you have made.

I am always rather wary of transliterated or translated texts where I lack the linguistic expertise to verify the quality of the English versions. I have seen some appalling translations of Anglo-Saxon texts (and other extremely good ones) and am always worried about the 'hidden agendas' of certain academic minds tailoring their translations to suit their own ends. I even spent some time this weekend trying to sift the wheat from the chaff of editions of the Ancrene Riwle. If you are able to guide me through the minefield of gathering appropriate primary and secondary texts, I should be honoured to be led.

Kindest Regards,

Miss A. Brightmore

The Avenbridge Curriculum

Dear Miss Angeline Brightmore.

Unfortunately I have never had the opportunity to attend any of your lessons at Avenbridge School for Blondes and Brunettes — or any other Aristasia-in-Telluria events! Thus I do not know what specific subjects you have hitherto included in your teaching. In Girlstown you have announced a course in Old English Literature, about which the Deputy Headmistress of Avenbridge School Miss Serendra Serelique herself has expressed the beautiful opinion that it "will be a valuable and valued contribution" to the development of the academic and cultural development of Aristasia.

School cuneiform? Now, what would the next step be for your "highly stimulated" young girls? As I do not really know your first step, you may already have taken the step that I propose here: To expand the perspective even further backwards in order to examine the intersection points between literature as a type of aesthetic and fictional discourse as such and incantations and other kinds of ritualistic and metaphysical discourses.

The fact that literature as well as the other arts originate in a perennial and 'prima philosophia' should also be studied in an historical context, and such studies should be made useful in the development of a contemporary Aristasian poetics. For instance, I could propose that you took a look at Enheduanna's Hymns to Inanna. Enheduanna was a priestess of the Moon God Nanna, father of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess of love and war, and identified with the Akkadian goddess Ishtar. Her works from the later 2300s or early 2200s B.C. comprise the oldest literature by an identified author written in cuneiform and also - as far as I know - the first works in history using a first person narrative. If you are interested I can supply you with some references.

Jannie

PS: Some of the links on your FAQ page do not work.

Thank you so much for this extremely helpful contribution. You are thinking along lines very similar to some of our own. The subjects of study you suggest combine some central Aristasian concerns — the importance of the prima philosophia — the feminine forms of Deity, and, as you so astutely say, the idea that such studies "should be made useful in the development of a contemporary Aristasian poetics". Any references — and indeed any writings you may yourself have produced in these areas — would be more than welcomed by us. Thank you again.

Oh yes — and we'll check those links!

Clean Linen

Dear Miss Brightmore,

At the risk of washing our clean linen in public I should like to assure you that your diffidence in the matter of teaching Anglo-Saxon literature is entirely misplaced. I know that you have taught the subject at University and that your expertise is beyond question. Our girls, I can assure you, dwell in the depths of ignorance regarding the subject and will benefit greatly from any instruction you may care to give them.

The more philosophically-minded of our pupils — or perhaps I myself — may wish to suggest some thoughts and draw some conclusions on such things as the nature of a Vikhelic culture (which the Anglo-Saxon culture appears to be) and the metaphysical aspects of the thought and language you are so kind as to elucidate to us. All this both they and I are quite powerless to do without the benefit of your excellent and highly proficient instruction.

And I implore you in such cases not to fear that your pupils are moving beyond you and that you have been rendered redundant. This is unlikely to happen for a very considerable period of time if ever. The more philosophic spirits among us are in fact the least scholarly.

This pooling of resources, this sharing of the knowledge and abilities of different members of the School in order to forge ahead and produce new syntheses and new ideas based upon traditional understandings is part of what sets this School apart from others. While it is a District Grammar School, aspects of it are certainly capable of functioning at University level (and here I mean Aristasian University level, which is something rather higher than that term often indicates in the Pit). Or to put it another way, the School may well "shade off" into a higher academic institution.

However this may be, the intellectual work of Aristasia — as expressed most publicly at present in The Feminine Universe — is something that I am anxious to see pursued and furthered in Avendale District and I am quite sure that your generous sharing of your knowledge and experience in the field of Anglo-Saxon literature will be a valuable and valued contribution to that great work.

Most sincerely yours

Miss Serendra Serelique
Deputy Headmistress, Avenbridge School

An Appropriate Curriculum for School

To The Blonde Management and Lady Readers,

Rebecca, Annya, Beth, Margueritte - yes but who is which? I have recently been called upon to present lessons at Avenbridge School for Blondes and Brunettes and, I must confess, the task has seemed to be rather a daunting one. The class is made up of some of the finest minds it has ever been my pleasure to teach. Girls are related to graduates of our best universities and public schools, professionals in their own spheres - and are also rather boisterous on occasion. Only this week I was forced to have one hilarious blonde stand apart in a corner for a period of time simply to quench her high spirits. I ought to have caned her, I know, but she was just too, too enchanting in her levity.

The reason for my letter is to ask whether there is a pette abroad in Elektraspace who might suggest areas of study in which to challenge this class. History, Philosophy and the Creative Arts are all impossible due to the disproportionately high level at which these girls already function in those areas.

I have considered Latin, Music, Arithmetic, Grammar and Linguistics, English Literature and even (in desperation) Needlework as appropriate areas for the odd educational foray but have settled with none of them. I have just begun a course of study in Old English Literature but, whilst my own knowledge in this area is sufficient, it is not by any means exhaustive and I shall soon have to progress to something new. Has anyone out there a course of study that would be interesting and stimulating for a small group of highly stimulated young fifth form girls?

Responses should be sent in care of the Management of Girls' Town.

Kind Regards,

Miss Angeline Brightmore

Tennis, Make-up and a Moral

Castle Mushroom continues forward, if you'll excuse a mixed metaphor — or an inappropriate metaphor at any rate, for how can a castle continue forward. I mean a castle, by definition, is a thing that stays where it is, firmly planted in the ground. But you know what I mean. The life of the castle continues to develop and all that sort of thing.

Already it is Castle, School and Embassy and other functions are in the offing. Recently I have been going to the School Tennis Courts. Miss Juliana says I may have a tennis coach soon, which sounded like fun until I heard fearful stories about such people making one run round the tennis courts. I am no longer quite so over-anxious to have one. However the origin of this particular Fearful Story was the Tiggrs who are always stuffing one's head with terrifying yarns. So it may not be true.

Anyway, we have been getting up really early to play tennis. But I mean really early. Nine o'clock and things like that I bet you thought there was only one nine o'clock, somewhere between cocktails and port, but I can assure you that there is another one that happens early in the morning before any one is awake. I know. I've been there, and a jolly odd place it is. But quite good for playing tennis in.

Miss Juliana sometimes moans about my putting on make-up before we set off on the twenty-yard trek to the School Courts. She says only a blonde would put on make-up to play tennis. Well really. I mean really. How on earth can any one play tennis without make-up? I cannot think of a single blonde who would think it possible, but I am sure many brunettes would agree too.

Just look at all the up-to-date films you've ever seen; not all at once I mean, but in a theoretical or synoptical sort of way — come on, you're all intellectuals; you know what I am driving at. No girl in them, blonde or brunette, is ever caught dead without her make up. Or even half-dead. Fish a girl out of the turbulent tide after the spectacularest of shipwrecks. Show her dying in her sweetheart's arms or emerging valiantly from the shadow of death — whichever it is you can be sure she has made up immaculately for the occasion. There is nothing strange about that, surely. It is simply civilised behaviour.

Snatched from a Watery Grave Now I suppose one has to defer somewhat to the Grim Realist school who would argue that after being dragged out of a raging torrent and while still gasping on the verge of death one might not have time to attend to one's maqillage. There is a degree of truth in that. It is one of the vulgar facts of banal material existence. It can't be helped. It is precisely what Platina and Diotima and all those ancient philosophers mean when they tell us that the physical world is an imperfect shadow of the True World of the Archetypes.

However, there is absolutely no excuse for showing such things in a film. A film, like all art, is supposed to take us closer to the Pure Archetype and the Celestial Beauty and all that sort of thing. What would be the good of a film if it couldn't do any better than real life? Look at the example on your right (is it right? — I always get muddled about left and right — yes, I think it is right). Anyway, look at it. Here is a girl who has, in all probability (I haven't actually seen the film), just escaped from a Watery Grave, with the salt drips of the Ocean's Clutches still clinging to her. So great have been her hardships that she has had to wear a grubby old Kadorian army-jacket thing. To say the least of the matter she isn't dressed for dinner. Not even for an informal little at-home dinner. Anywhere but the Pit she would be debarred from the local fleapit cinema, let alone the opera. But her make-up is still utterly comme elle faut.

Now isn't this a lesson to us all (and especially Certain Brunettes)? If under all the trying circumstances this girl has found herself in she can still look immaculate, what excuse have we who must face nothing more than a tennis court and a grotesquely early getting-up time?

Even the threat of running round the tennis courts should not deter us. We may be in films or in real life; but whether we are fact or fiction we should always be made up.

Annya

Links and Scones

My Dear Miss Bifocals,

but of course I am interested in your archives, being a Librarian and Archivist myself at the Vintesse Province Central Library and Local Archives . I must say I am not entirely familiar with this Novarian contraption my niece calls an "Ordinator" so I am dictating this to her, and she is kindly relaying it to you. I have lived my whole life in my beloved Vintesse, and have not had occasion to be acquainted with such things. My Niece however, has travelled extensively between the Aristasian provinces with her Brunette Mummie, from here to Infra-Quirinelle to Novaria and back! She is quite the spritely young Miss. (My niece is blushing that I am referring to her.)

We have tried these "links" that you mention, and the two that refer to Archive Fourteen and Archive Fifteen seem to work perfectly well. However, the last coloured line that should send one to the "New Archive" does not appear to respond. I do not know if this is due to my Niece's particular machine, or that this "link" needs more tinkering.

I shall leave it in your more than capable hands. Please do come and visit our splendid library should you ever venture in Vintesse, there is a superb Tea Room directly opposite where I could treat you to some fortifying, strong tea and a scone or two.

Regards,

Miss Harriet Halfmoon
Senior Librarian

Oops! you are quite right. This is just the sort of thing we need to know. Thank you so much. The link should be working now. I am afraid I prefer my tea rather on the weak side — but a scone or two: what a very tempting idea! BB

Archive Time is Here Again

And now for the boring bit nobody takes any notice of! We have made a new Archive, cutting the present volume rather shorter than it was and making it our fifteenth volume. This page had become unusually big even by Aristasia Friends standards. As a matter of fact, it ran to 25,000 words without the many pictures. Sorry if it made your browser groan!

So here we are slimmed down to 5,000 words with Archive 15 weighing in at 20,000 making it our biggest Archive so far (actually they do seem to be getting bigger, as our second biggest is Archive 14).

As usual we ask any one who may be interested (is any one interested?) to test the links to and from the new Archive and report anything that is not working as it should be — and any other links if you want to. If you can't contribute at least you can debug. Though both would be quite charming!

Belinda Bifocals
Avendale Archivist

Cocktails for Two

Spring has sprung Pettes, and I am feeling full of the joys of it!

Isn't it simply marvelous to hear the exciting Tiger tales of our own Avendale Adventuresses? To celebrate their victorious return (in one piece!.....well, two actually!) I thought it only fitting to proffer something with an Indian flavour. So here is a fitting recipe from my little, up-to-date cocktail pocket book (given to me by my favourite, little Indian Blonde!) .....then I also found a Tiger Cocktail from Novarian Elektraspace. So I thought, well, the weather is improving and the Sun provokes thirst, so why not offer TWO appropriate cocktails! So here they jolly well are!

I hope you enjoy them.

1.

INDIAN COCKTAIL

1/8 gill of Canadian Club Whisky.
1/8 gill of Italian Vermouth.
1/8 gill of Gin.
1/2 teaspoonful of Triple Sec Cointreau.
1/2 Teaspoonful of Orange Bitters.
1/2 teaspoonful of Brown Curacao.
1 Dash of Lemon Peel Juice.
1/2 Tumblerful of broken Ice.

Half fill a tumbler with broken ice and add the Orange Bitters. Then add the Canadian Club Whisky, the Italian Vermouth, the Gin, the Cointreau and the Brown Curacao. Stir well and pass through a strainer into a cocktail glass. Serve with a dash of lemon peel juice on top.

This is a fairly strong cocktail, not advised in hot weather.

2.

FLYING TIGER

1/4 Galliano
3/4 White Creme de Menthe
1 1/4 Vodka

Slice of lemon and a pick.

Mix into an Old Fashioned, full of ice.

Pip Pip, and Thanking You Ladies very much.

Miss B* X

PS. I have not overlooked the message regarding the Brunettes de France, and will rustle something delicious up in the weeks to come. A Bientot. Mlle le Brun.

A Passage to India

Unlike the Passages to India in olden times, we surged forth with our jet airliner, East towards the sun. Towards the land of the Maharajahs, of the sahibs, of the Old Gods, of tea, spice and mystery. And towards the land of the tiger. We are in search of the Royal Bengal Tiger, the magnificent cat revered for centuries, feared for centuries. she has been persecuted in the name of 'sport', she has been coveted for the rich spoils that adorn those who defeat her. The most secretive of all the Great Cats, she has been worshipped as a God, as a protector, and condemned as a ruthless killer. Stories have been told of her courage and strength, of her power and nobility, and also of her terrifying evil. she has been described as 'a large-hearted gentleman', a 'pathetic, lame coward', 'a manifestation of evil' and 'a God of the forest and thus of the world'. Once she roamed the whole of the Asian sub-continent, but today she is found in small pockets of jungle, small places which have created the last remaining shrines to the guardian of the forest. The forest is her temple, the rich dense undergrowth, the secret places to hide, the perfect place for her solitary, shadowy existence.

Sai Durga As we passed the Sun, on its daily procession West, we entered the darkness. And in this darkness we found the life of Delhi. The vibrant colours, sounds and aromas. The sacred cow wandering the messy streets. The lonely saddhus, the temples, both elaborate and simple, people both rich and poor. The melée of traffic, of pedestrians, of people sleeping on the streets, gossiping on corners, worshipping in shrines. Detached from this, we arrived at the colonial residence of such well-known names as Lord Curzon and Lutyens. The white coated waiters, and the traditionally dressed doorman welcomed us to the magic that is India.

From there we headed south west to the land of Kipling's Jungle Books, in anticipation of perhaps a meeting with the big Baloo, the noble Bagheera, and the villain of the story, the dreaded Shere Khan. As we watched the shanty towns of Delhi disappear giving way to the fields of wheat and rice, the wandering cows, the domestic buffalo wallowing in the shallows, the odd and misplaced nilgai - or blue bull - we felt the draw of the Jungle, that tempting secret that none can ever really know. As dawn breaks, the Jungle is real, the searing heat of the sun, the vivid green of the Sal, the thick, inaccessible bamboo, the lush marshland of the meadows and the bright red of the flame of the forest. Here we would search for the tiger. We were in her home now. She watched us from her shadowy resting place, she saw us many more times than we saw her. We would humbly request an audience with the Queen of the Jungle.

The towering fort on the top of the largest mountain in Bandhavgarh bears down impressively on the insignificant visitors. The mountain retreat of the Maharajah of Rewa, a temple with the ancient statues of the incarnations of Vishnu, the Protector of the Forest. At the base of the mountain, Vishnu reclines, surrounded by a lake inhabited by frogs and fish, behind him the ancient Sanskrit engravings, describing the life of the jungle. The giant monolithic caves, carved out of bare rock by Buddhists, who once lived a meditative life in the jungle, seeing nature at its most real. Guests in someone else's drawing room, finding solace in the simple lives of the beasts.

Again at dawn, we enter the jungle, finding the working elephants with their mahouts, tracking our quarry. The gentle giants, so obedient to their driver's command scour the dense landscape for any trace of the Queen. And then it is our turn. We mount the elephant, and silently we slip through the thickets, the bamboo cutting our legs, the flame of the forest contrasting with the luminescent green of the sal. The obedient elephant removing any overhanging branches that might hurt the visitors, munching her
breakfast as she performs her daily chores, entering the domain of the tiger, contrary to her natural instinct.

After much searching, listening intently for the fearful alarm calls of the monkeys, the spotted deer and sambar, looking carefully for the tell-tale pug marks of the Queen's patrol, we find her. Slipping through the forest on her morning vigil, she glides past us, unaware of her effect on us. Silently she moves, her golden coat disappearing into the darkness. she cares not for us, for our interest, she has more important matters on her mind. her secretive life demands that she patrol and mark her territory, like putting a notice up on a telegraph pole. She tells the world who she is, what she owns, when she passed here, and most importantly, what will happen if she finds a single trespasser. her enormous frame moves with the grace of a ballet dancer, undetected, single-minded and unconcerned, she embodies the spirit of grace and harmony. Harmony of nature, the single indicator of natural harmony in a forest.

Our fleeting glimpse of her, disappearing into the thick undergrowth, encourages us to take a different path, towards new alarm calls from the frightened residents. After traversing a steep and rough gorge, we find someone, less intent on her duties, prepared to give us an audience. The Royal Bengal Tiger rests serenely on a rock. her bright orange coat in contrast to the black rock upon which she sleeps. Occasionally she looks our way, giving us a faint hope that perhaps she recognises us, perhaps she understands the momentous occasion that her presence offers us. To her, we are but a benevolent observer, our elephant munching noisily on the bamboo branches, shifting her weight to support our movements, and grunting on her morning ritual. The Queen of the jungle goes back to sleep, oblivious to the camera clicks and the excitement that surrounds her presence. Occasionally her tail flicks, and her large paws spread out in the comfort of her bed. All too soon it is over, we are taken back to the very human life of the jeep that has escorted us to her jungle hideout.

Our very human concerns return us to our hearty breakfast, our easily prepared feast, that we think nothing of, and struggle not for. And we remember her. The apex predator, she who has the most difficult life in the jungle. The tenuous nature of the fragile forest that supports her. Every bird, every mammal fears her, the forest resounds with their calls when they encounter her, warning all the other inhabitants that she is near. Nobody prepares her breakfast for her, nobody sees to her continued health. She is alone and contented, amidst her struggles for food and territory, ever encroached by her human neighbours. But only through her is the life of the forest made real, made complete, and made into a perfection of nature.

As the sun gives its life-giving force to the earth, throwing elements of darkness and light through the dense habitat of the jungle, so its reward and success is reflected back to the heavens, in the golden coat shining through the black stripes of her, the Royal Bengal Tiger.

Miss C

(Arith)meticulous analysis but 'mathively' deceived?

Dear girls,

The young Misses Miralene are somewhat prone to be outspoken on many issues. In most cases I find that I can wholeheartedly agree with their analyses. In one area, however, they appear to lack the depth of understanding, and therefore appreciation, of their chosen topic. The pure science of mathematics is, sadly, but a distant dream for the Miralene girls. What they learn with me is the most basic arithmetic. I might add that far from being injurious to Annya, her studies appear to be sharpening her mental faculties, aiding her concentration and stimulating her interest in metaphysics. Have not some of the greatest thinkers of the world written on infinitesimal calculus in their metaphysics? Perhaps Annya will write a commentary on it one day - in the meantime I have been told that she is significantly better at light games after her Saturday School sessions. For all these reasons, Miss Annalinde, I should be grateful if you would leave the diarist role to Annya and my teaching methods to my best judgement. Thank you.

Before I end might I take the liberty of adding that young Annalinde's comments on the currency of Europe are most incisive and illuminating. I wonder, in the light of what you have said, whether they ought to have called it the 'solidus'? It seems traditional, sensible, uniform of pronunciation and......far too good for the Belgians!

My apologies for this intrusion into your girlish frivolity, I shall gracefully retire back to my chair by the fire.

Regards,

Miss S. Markham

Trees, Trains Travel and Travail

Darlings — we have been simply whizzing about lately. Hardly time to stop. But I just must tell you a little about our doings.

The discovery of magnolia outside Castle Mushroom has delighted us all. I have made a picture of it. Still very young and buddy (I mean bud-like, of course, not chummy) as you see. But later I shall pop up a picture of the trees in their full glory.

Paris was divine. To those who say travel has become impossible because the Pit has invaded everything, this Lindie replies that wherever one goes in Aristasian company, one create one's own Magic Bubble and see only the good and pure. It really is true. Take the super-bullet subtrain, par exemple (we took it, so why shouldn't you — chee-huckle). In my memory it is an art-neo wonder, an Orient Express in Streamline-Moderne — elegant, sophisticated and super-duper fast, whizzing us from the heart of London to the heart of Paris in less time than it takes to drive to Birmingham (but then who would ever drive to Birmingham?)

Of course, in vulgar technical fact one probably had to avoid noticing several bushels of bongo oiks and bourgeoiks whose idea of sophisticated travelling clothes is something that makes a pair of crumpled pyjamas after three days of malarial tossings and perspirations look like Christienne Dior chic (these people are well known for having the chic of the Devil — quite literally); but really, does one remember such things? The good thing about nonentities is that they leave no impression.

Reality is blonde - we bend it to our wil So my residual image of the Super-bullet Subtrain Imperial Star, and of Paris in general, is one of up-to-date charm and jollity. Not to mention excellent food, and Culture (with a capital see) in quantities just sufficient to charm without becoming tedious.

Annya, of course had a wonderful time with her beatifically blonde and quintessentially Quirrie Paris Purse (see below). She has decided to use it for a Euro Purse. Have you ever come across these Euros? I am sure you remember the Toytown Money that Pit-european countries used to have (and I believe the Yuk still has) — each with a picture of some Famous Person on each denomination. I always thought it rather unfair on countries like Belgium which presumably had to reduce the number of denominations in circulation. Well, now they've done away with all that — probably so the East European countries could join in — and replaced them with a sort of Occupation Mark imposed by the Octopus and exactly the same in all European Countries. I think this is what the bongos call Celebrating Diversity — or have I got it wrong again?

One always used to say that bongo currency looked like Monopoly money. Now it really is Monopoly money, in the most literal and sinister sense of the word. Anyway, they call these Octomarks by the name of Euros; presumably as a demonstration of European Disunity, as every single European country pronounces the word differently.

Monopolist Money I have to say I am very much in favour of these ear'oles (to give them their Latvian pronunciation) because they make travel so much easier, especially for Annya. Whether we are popping off to France or Austria, Italy or Greece, she can just take along her pink-and-white Paris purse, extract a few Marks of the Beast, and buy her frou-frous without let or hindrance. I for one think it is jolly sweet of all those countries to give up the symbols and the actuality of a thousand years of tradition, nationhood and often hard-won independence just so that travelling Aristasians can buy their frou-frous with less trouble. Foolish, but very sweet.

Speaking of Annya, she now appears to be studying Latin, Music, a bit of Chinese and a species of Maths. What a studious blonde. If I were to tell you that Maths can be Fun you probably wouldn't believe me, and of course you would be quite right. If I were, on the other hand, to tell you that Maths can be an Instrument of Terrible Punishment, you probably would and again you would be quite right (you are clever — have you ever thought of playing Call my Bluff?) Anyway, we simply must get Annya, who is being uncharacteristically shy on the subject, to tell you all about her Saturday School. I am sure it would amuse you. It seems to amuse everyone but her.

See you soonly,

Lindie

Cocktails pour vous?

To everyone who drinks at the cocktail lounge,

What is this sort of cocktail lounge that offers no drink to its foreign guests? I have been reading your conversation for very long times but find nothing about the drinks of the brunettes of France from where I come. Because you have visited Paris in recent times I think you will know how generous are our French waitresses with their hospitality, no? Perhaps Miss Brunette Browne has something in her shaker for we brunette girls?

A bientot,

Antoinnette Laneuve

News from Avenbridge

Well, not a whole lot of news actually. I mean, nothing earth-shaking has actually happened since we returned from Gay Paree, but life is chugging on charmingly at the good old New Embassy.

Sai Durga Rayati Those of you who recall the Old Embassy (not the last one but the Really Old One) will remember that there was a gorgeous magnolia tree growing outside it. We rather missed it at the last Embassy, but here at Castle Mushroom there are two gorgeous magnolias just outside. I didn't realise it at first, not being a notable tree-wallah, but now that they are starting to come into bloom I see that they are definitely magnolias and am filled with delight.

School continues of course and we have started learning some Chinese philosophy and culture from our new Chinese mistress, Lu Sin San. Actually, in Westrenne, she would be Miss Lu, because Lu is her name and Sin San is the respectful way of addressing a teacher.

I have also started learning Latin — actually in the course of Saturday School. I shall have to tell you about my saturday School some time. But not now.

I have been enjoying the Tiggrs' Indian goddesses. Durga, I think, is like our Sai Vikhë. Miss Wilkinson — who is very wise in Tiger lore (though, perhaps fortunately, she isn't my teacher) — told me that Durga did not always ride a tiger but a lion and once lions were as prominent in Estrenne iconography as they are in the West. So perhaps Durga is also solar, like Sai Raya.

So here, for all of you who like these things, is a beautiful picture of Durga seated on a lion. I think you may agree that here, although she is still the warrior-deity, the full light of the Solar Spirit Herself shines through her.

With lots of love from,

Annya

Emmy Rides Again

Dear All,

Since 'dem Tiggers' have gorn orf to Windia, things have gone quiet enough to make you scream around here. Nobody comes to do colouring any more and there's almost nobody getting caned at all! I say ALMOST nobody, because Annya has to see her Arcadian Mathematics mistress (affectionately known to us as 'the Dragon') soon about the hundreds of lines she has had to do this week (tee-hee!). Still, the Tiggerage smells better since the removal of the chicken from under the bed so that's better anyway.

Don't you all think it's terribly exciting when you get presents and things? I do. Recently I have had lovely scrumptious Easter eggs from America, a Kinnie-Shiny of the film The Last Time I Saw Paris, and a terribly sophisticated greeting card and some music books from Kadoria. I thought that of all these presents you would probably most like to share the card from Kadoria. I don't know whether the picture was taken in Kadoria but the card arrived with a Kadorian Post Mark.

The caption that goes with the picture says,

"Glamour is what I sell. It's my stock in trade."

Apparently Miss Dietrich thought that up all by herself! I know I am probably not quite as sophisticated as Miss Dietrich - yet - but I am not as old as she is either so I have plenty of time to trade my stockings and become very glamorous indeed. Does anybody else adore Marlene?

Missing Zoë's letters has become my full time occupation recently. Somebody please help alleviate the sense of emptiness I feel without them.

In anticipation of hundreds of Zoë-substitute letters I am, and shall remain, your slightly sad and lonely, chocolate and ice-cream eating by way of consolation in my emptiness,

Em x

Ganesha

Ganesha is the remover of all obstacles. I have always loved elephants and consider them very special creatures. In Aristasia, all deities are feminine, so I have drawn my feminine ganesha, Whom you see here.

Annya and Margueritte brought Fleur a book about Babar the elephant from Paris. She loves the book and will colour the pictures. Their present meant a great deal to Fleur and she intends to draw them a picture to say thank you.

I was given a book about Babar as a child. It was in French and at the time, I did not understand it. I still have the book, which I read often. I also read it to Annya, when we lived at the old embassy. Babar's world is a safe world, where everyone has a place in the hierarchy. When Babar organises the kingdom, everyone has a special role,

HELP GIRLS' TOWN TO GROW
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