ABSINTHE, DOMINATION AND A CORSET CATALOGUE
Having decided that all was lost (see below – "Maybe we simply have to accept that we’re an aberrant species of sociopath and the only sane strategy is one of high-speed hedonism and fast demise.") a whole clutch of decadence came down the cyber-pike. Most of it had a decidedly Victorian tone but that may be a synchronic, near-miss, side effect of my work on the steam punk novels Kindling and the sequel Conflagration, that is nearly finished.

The first was an entire website devoted to recipes for cocktails involving absinthe.
http://www.feeverte.net/cocktails.html

The second came from the magnificent Wikipedia – The Free Encyclopedia – that seemed to indicate that the 19th century was way more perverse in its perversions that the 21st, and also that Al Swearengen had nothing on Mrs Berkley...

The 19th century British dominatrix Mrs Theresa Berkley (died September 1836) ran a brothel in at 28 Charlotte Street, just to the north of Soho, specializing in flagellation. She is notable as the inventor of the Berkley Horse, a piece of BDSM apparatus. According to an un-named source quoted by Henry Spencer Ashbee,
"Her instruments of torture were more numerous than those of any other governess. Her supply of birch was extensive, and kept in water, so that it was always green and pliant: she had shafts with a dozen whip thongs on each of them; a dozen different sizes of cat-o'-nine-tails, some with needle points worked into them; various kinds of thin bending canes; leather straps like coach traces; battledoors, made of thick sole-leather, with inch nails run through to docket, and currycomb tough hides rendered callous by many years flagellation. Holly brushes, furze brushes; a prickly evergreen, called butcher's bush; and during the summer, a glass and China vases, filled with a constant supply of green nettles, with which she often restored the dead to life. Thus, at her shop, whoever went with plenty of money, could be birched, whipped, fustigated, scourged, needle-pricked, half-hung, holly-brushed, furze-brushed, butcher-brushed, stinging-nettled, curry-combed, phletbotomized, and tortured till he had a belly full. For those whose lech it was to flog a woman, she would herself submit to a certain extent; but if they were gluttons at it, she had women in attendance who would take any number of lashes the flogger pleased, provided he forked out an ad valorem duty. Among these were Miss Ring, Hannah Jones, Sally Taylor, One-eyed Peg, Bauld-cunted Poll, and a black girl, called Ebony Bet."

The Wikipedia home page is at...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

But as a gauge of the vastness of its database, it even, to my eternal delight, has an entry on my fictional vampire Victor Renquist...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victor_Renquist

And finally, for all who dream of saloon girls and Lola Montez, this on-line corset catalogue is worth a visit for the glamor art alone...
http://www.corsetconnection.com/index.htm

The secret word is Oyster

CRYPTIQUE – Does life hold more than rage and lewd proposals?