January 2009: 1001 Rules For My Unborn Son

Blog of the Month for January is 1001 Rules For My Unborn Son, a collection of moral commandments, fashion suggestions and music tips that is updated daily. Filmmaker Walker Lamond started the blog as a simple way of preserving and updating the lessons his father taught him as he was growing up. It has since become a surprising online hit with more than half a million readers visiting the site. Or is it so surprising?

The appeal of the blog is its old-fashioned tone. In our era of anything goes ultra-permissiveness, where extreme behaviour is routine, morals lax and constraint and moderation quaint notions, where the most outrageous act might be to suddenly find God, Lamond's blog speaks to our inner Victorian. To the idea of a well-dressed gentleman, treating people with respect and taking nothing for granted. Of taking it all on the chin and standing up tall to any challenge. Our conception of a virtue-filled past is probably no more than a nostalgic myth borne out of a growing frustration with lives of self-indulgent vice, but Lamond is on to something with this. Such entries as ‘If you've made your point, stop talking,' ‘A T-shirt is neither a philosophy nor an advertisement. It's a shirt. Wear it plain' or ‘Take your sunglasses off indoors. This includes elevators and planes,' get at the me-centred superficiality of our approach to things. Although my personal favourite is on a different subject entirely: ‘In Monopoly, buy the orange properties.'

Ironically, Lamond's wife is currently not expecting, so whether there ever will be a Lamond Junior who will benefit from all this paternal wisdom remains to be seen.

Garan Holcombe