Dear reader, allow me to begin by doing two things; first apologising for the tardy arrival of this text of mine, and then blaming it all on Her Majesty’s Supreme Court. Huh! Supreme indeed… You see, I have spent the past few weeks in prison, well, in a courthouse detention facility anyway. The esteemed Lord L. T. Ponkleton tried to thwart my latest investigations into his fascinating life by accusing me of espionage and the likes. My attorney had never heard such hogwash, he claimed.

“As soon as a gentleman such as my client, Mr. Blunt, chooses to divert his interests by means of a notepad with ready marked headlines like ‘configurations’, ‘proportions – him/her’ and ‘stamina’, and a telescopic lens, society fails to view the greater vista and judges him on the basis of bias and jealousy.”

He was amazing, my attorney, and so I got off clean. Pretty clean, that is, having to spend only three weeks in a detention cell with a stout and rather unsympathetic fellow before vacating the courthouse with an aching rear and a free spirit. I was only saddened by this intermezzo occurring between Lord Ponkleton, of all people, and myself, but I was soon reassured in that he simply must not be aware of what’s best for him. I am both. Aware. And best for him.

Anyway, I set out to chronicle the latest developments in the life of this intriguing, intelligent and utterly and astonishingly dashing young nobleman, and so I will…

Approximately two months ago, Lord Ponkleton was on his way from an evening class in Italian – that he teaches out of the goodwill of his heart at the Stockholm University – with a colleague of his, with whom he had only exchanged a few words through a nicotine enriched mist before. As a small escapade here might be befitting to mention that when he had first had a chance to rest his eyes upon her and hade made an assessment of not only her physique but of her persona as well, albeit from afar, he had announced to some of the other members of Grapes’, including Lords Jamés, Mottsford and Boyling, as well as to the young Doña Emilia, that of all the “bone:able chicks at school”, there was one young woman in particular who stood out from the crowd with her beauty, temperament, and sensuous radiance, and that young woman was said colleague, with whom he was on his way off campus approximately two months ago. Her name, to make things easier further along, was, and is still to the best of my knowledge, Lady Godiva Bubamara.

They entered into a conversation about the fine art of smoking tobacco – their mutual interest in which, I could tell through my impressive binoculars, was a huge turn-on for the young nobleman – and pretty soon she invited him to a party at the Bubamara Estate the following Saturday. This was a Thursday, I might add.

The days and hours preceding the revelry at the Bubamara Estate, L. T. Ponkleton exchanged words with Lord Boyling, in particular, concerning the possibilities of developments in his rapport with the young woman in question. But among the many hypotheses the two noblemen produced, not one could match even slightly what would come to ensue.

The party was amazing. Well, it seemed like it to me anyway. Sadly, and I really have no explanation for this, I was not let into the Bubamara Estate the night of the shindig. Instead, I observed Lord Ponkleton from afar, making notes of his rapport with the other attendees and ambulating the surroundings, sneaking into the garden and discretely interviewing other people about their connections to the bash, and their knowledge of the goings-on inside and of the hostess herself. I was astonished to hear their replies, and further flabbergasted when the noises coming from inside the estate confirmed what I had just heard. There was a band playing salsa and samba rhythms – music from Spain and the colonies, don’t you know – but they blended the band music with a melange of gypsy and oriental tunes coming from some kind of gramophone-esque contraption, and there were people inside dancing to it, and people outside smoking the narghile and talking about life and death and everything in-between. It was a den of decadence and sin, and I can’t for the life of me understand why I wasn’t allowed in, nor can I forgive the ones responsible. Especially, as I found out that the hostess, Lady Godiva Bubamara, is not only an acclaimed teacher of oriental dance, but also an internationally renowned belly dancer herself. I could only imagine the ways in which she could move to that music.

As the festivities gradually subsided into a comfortable mellowness, and people started leaving for the warmth of their beds in their estates respectively, only few people remained. Before then, I might add, L. T. Ponkleton had asked the hostess about the location of the most proximal train station or from whence else he might be able to procure a coach and a driver for the ride back to Ponk Plaza, and she had said she had all the details noted down somewhere, so whenever he wanted to leave she could fetch the information for him. But he was still there now.

As I said, there were very few of them there to be seen, but another one lurked somewhere inside, sleeping, a sympathetic woman originating from the former prison colony of Australia and currently travelling the globe in search of adventure and new experiences, and, Lord, was she in for both this evening and night.

Squatting in the bushes just outside, I overheard the ones still awake smoking cigarettes and chatting about all kinds of things. A discussion took form between the hostess and our favourite nobleman about bedchamber accessories, and he enquired if perhaps she would like to show him these items, at which point they disappeared inside. When they returned some time later, the smile on his face told my keen perceptions that they had been kissing and that he expected more of the same to ensue in the near future.

More guests left until only two remained, besides L. T. Ponkleton and the sleeping Australian female, and while he sat outside smoking and chatting with the hostess on the porch, the remaining two had gone inside to one of the bedchambers. Not that long a time passed, only about two cigarettes worth in fact, before Lady Godiva Bubamara and Lord Ponkleton could hear them loudly and forcefully copulating inside. But they didn’t seem to find it quite as awkward as they found it to be amusing.

Unfortunately, I was momentarily distracted by a chipmunk, but I did manage to hear her say something to L. T. along the lines of, “You know you’re not leaving here tonight, don’t you?”, and him responding with something sly and witty like, “Well, you didn’t actually think I was being serious when I asked you where I might procure a carriage this evening, did you?”. They chuckled a while. However, they soon realised they’d need to travel through the upstairs bedchamber and past the actively amorous couple in order to reach the downstairs area and the hostess’ bedchamber, in which – separated from the rest of the room by only a thin veil of fabric – the Australian woman was trying to sleep. This made things slightly more complicated, but far from impossible for the young duo, so they managed.

From outside, I could hear Lady Godiva Bubamara and Lord L. T. Ponkleton coalescing for hours and hours. I’m not sure what they were talking about, but the conversation seemed to evoke rather strong emotional outbursts from both of them, so the topic of conversation may well have been of a personal nature, I’m not sure. Either way, my heart bled for the poor Australian girl. However, my sources tell me that she was at least momentarily spared from losing any more sleep in that the Lady and Lord changed venue from the master bedroom to the bathroom and, briefly, the kitchen, where they listened to the other couple upstairs and were inspired to continue with their private congregation themselves.

A couple of hours later, morning broke, and life went on for the Lady and Lord. But life, I would soon find out, would never be quite the same again.

Since that fateful night at the Bubamara Estate, the two of them have been seeing quite a lot of each other. In fact, they’ve been spending more or less every moment of the day and night together, and they still do, though lately they have had a handful of engagements separately as well; work and whatnot. Also, she had to dash off to the South of Sweden to attend a family birthday celebration, and he went off to Berlin for some exhibition of artefacts from the Holy Roman Empire. But that withstanding, they do spend a lot of time together. Sadly, I know of no romantic words having been exchanged between the two, but I’m not too conservative to appreciate these modern relationships. One might, after all, enjoy a good debate with someone of the opposite sex without there having to exist any outspoken romanticism between oneself and the other. Even when debates aren’t necessarily the only thing that one engages in.

Besides, I have been spending an awful lot of time in the trees outside Ponk Plaza with my notepad and telescope, and have learned things that I did not even believe permissible under the laws of gravity, by which I thought we all had to abide. Which is where the spying charge and the stay at Her Majesty’s leisure come in…

But I’m free now. Free again and at last, and believe me, dear reader, when I say that I’m going to change the world with these discoveries. I’m considering compiling them in a two-volume tutorial, the reach of which around the globe will be far greater than anything before. The Ars Amandi will pale by comparison, and the Kama Sutra be damned! These, my misinformed friends, are the 1001 Arabian Nights of Lord Ponkleton!