Room 2D

The first of two parts, from New Blushes 2.11 George Elway peered searchingly out of his classroom. The end wall was virtually all glass and faced onto an enclosed space of grass surrounded by thick shrubs. This afternoon it presented a cold and wintry scene: the grass and shrubs liberally covered in snow under a grey sky which promised more. There was no person to be seen, but of course there wouldn’t be. Nonetheless George peered intently around. It was 3.45 on a Tuesday afternoon in February and getting dusk already. Round at the front of the school pupils would shortly be leaving, dashing out in their coats and scarves, with no wish to hang about. That was good. George didn’t like the thought of people hanging about. Not when he was going to have a Special Detention. But of course people wouldn’t be hanging about here anyway, at this side of the school. It was not accessible, there was a fence at either end. And outside Room...

It’s the Women’s World Cup Final at Lord’s today, so to mark the occasion, here’s a fitting feature from Privilege Club 15. I’m not convinced that this model has ever picked up a cricket bat in her life before this shoot though. At Little Snoreton-on-the-Mire in the Cotswold heartlands they take their cricket seriously. When the deliciously pretty Miss Melinda Dewsbury-Saint took it into her head to join the austere men-only club as a playing member, it threw the selection panel into a frenzy of debate. Lawyers were consulted, and the legal reading was that, on grounds of her sex alone, Miss Dewsbury-Saint could not be excluded. The only reasons the Club could legitimately use for turning her down — as, to a man, they wished to do (please note here that the younger, playing members of the club had not been consulted) — was if she were to prove unsuitable in some other way. Well, on the grounds of breeding and background...