I guess for those that know me, it pretty much goes without saying that I got spanked a lot as a child. Sure, according to my parents my little brother 'allegedly' got spanked more than me, but I put that down to him having all the subtlety of a block of cheese when he misbehaved, whereas when I got up to mischeif, I tried to keep it on the down-low. No point taking unnecessary beatings now is there? I guess my brother and I are different people...

For example, when I was mucking up in year two at primary school I would be passive agressive to the teacher, and refuse to do what they wanted for an hour or so. My brother? Well, he was on a first name basis with the school principle, and on one occasion he decided that a short range attack on the principle was in order, and as such, during one lecture in the principles office he walked forward, kicked the principle in the shin as hard as he could, and then turned tail and ran home as fast as he could.

Never a good idea when the teacher knows your name, and when you still have to return to school to collect your school bag and belongings to avoid getting in trouble from your mother for wagging school. Oh, also not a good idea when you live two houses away from the school itself.

...on one occasion my brother decided that a short range attack on the principle was in order... during one lecture in the principles office he walked forward, and kicked the principle in the shin as hard as he could.

I remember when I was a lot younger mum would grab my left wrist with her left hand, and dangle me in the air and using her right hand, she would hit me on the backside so hard I would swing like a pendulum. I remember one afternoon racing to simultaneously put on three pairs of shorts knowing I was about to cop a smack for an assortment of disobedience. One time her grip slipped and she sent me flying across the room. I turned around and asked if we could do it again...

Pretty soon mum upgraded from the hand to a leather strap or wooden spoon. In the worst cases when I was being a little brat with mum while we were out shopping or at church, she would look at me and speak the words that strike fear into the hearts of every small child.

"Wait until you get home and I speak to your father."

No matter how hard you tried to work off your debt, no matter how much of an angel you became for the rest of the shopping trip, you always knew that at some stage that evening you were in trouble. Big painful trouble. The worst part was the waiting, not knowing exactly when that pain was coming. Sometimes it would be as soon as Dad got home, other times it was hours later after dinner. Either way, you knew it was coming.

I thought I had seen it all when it comes to child beatings... hands, sandals, belts, wooden spoons, wooden spoons as thick as cricket bats, wooden and metal rulers, tyre tubes and even knives. (Yes, my grandfather would whack us across the back of the knuckles with his kitchen knife if we had bad table manners... he was very English.)

But now apparently kids develop a strange 'love-hate' relationship with their instruments of discipline. One house I visited had two wooden spoons in a special jar on the sideboard. One for each child, and each individually named. Not with the names of the children however, no, these two wooden spoons had their own special names written in permanent marker.

"Mr Oh Oh" and "Señor Spanky".

I guess things have changed a lot since I was a kid, when if I ran amok in a shopping centre I knew I was about to have a meeting with "The Belt" or "The Cricket Bat Wooden Spoon", nowadays kids get to go home to see "Mr Oh Oh" and "Señor Spanky". It almost sounds appealing, like some new toy or candy treat.

"Daddy please may I go home and play with Señor Spanky?"

But there is more to this. Each wooden spoon has its own stereotypical face drawn on it. Mr Oh Oh is an extremely Asian looking character, who conveys this overwhelming sense of "Grocery store operator by day - kung fu master by night" aura. You probably wouldn't want to complain about the freshness of your lettuce to Mr Oh Oh. Oh Oh could bitch slap you back to Wednesday if he needed to.

Señor Spanky is a somewhat different character... The over-sized moustache and large sombrero allude to a middle age Mexican man, sleeping under his poncho and sombrero by the side of a river, with a little campfire and his trusty horse somewhere nearby. But don't for a moment think it is OK to poke Señor Spanky with a stick, and steal a spoonful of beans from his campfire, because under that coloured poncho that his wife gave him last year, Señor Spanky packs heat in the form of two six shooters and two ammunition belts wrapped around his chest. You cause trouble with Señor Spanky, and he will cause trouble with you.

"I am Señor Spanky, you ate my beans... prepare to die!".

But seriously, if my parents had drawn faces on the wooden spoons and given them cool names, spank time would have been a whole lot more fun than I ever remembered it. A whole lot more fun.