The Cunning Plan

* A plan so cunning it's the Managing Director of the Global Top 10 Share Index, Corporation of Cunning.


This is a real Baldrick Special this one.

 Really I should go with a nice sensible idea that hasn't been done a million times before, but I'm still  too full of hope for that, so I'm going to go with what I would really like to do in an ideal Utopian world, which is to start a Blogazine.

I'd like to call it Lady Vanguard.

The "Lady" part of the title I like because the magazine will hopefully appeal to women who are apathetic about this culture of glorifying mediocrity and; if the popular magazines etc. are to be believed, of the subversion of women's areas of interest to fashion, relationships, and celebrity.

The sad truth is that, society, or perhaps more accurately society's mirror, the media, tends to reflect the views and lifestyles of the lowest common denominators.

I know myself, as a reasonably intelligent female, that I'll read Heat or Cosmo if I find one lying around. Depravity has its own dark fascination, true. However, afterwards you feel trivialised and almost ashamed. Or at least, I do.

Whilst not being in favour of a Nanny State, it does seem that in some areas like popular culture we have gone too far the other way. It's heresy to let a young child walk home alone from school, but for some reason it's okay to subject them to a daily onslaught of glorified banalities through the media.

Queen Victoria was reading adult novels by the age of six. Now I realise that's taking it too far- but it serves to illuminate the fact that the majority of the Western World, particularly women I think, are so encouraged to underrate ourselves intellectually- that we don't even think to demand better material.

It might be argued that we are fed such rubbish because there is a huge market for it. This is certainly possible, but I really believe that most of our choices stem less from an informed choice, and more from convenience and laziness. There are ten trivial magazines to every edifying one, and it seems so much easier and also guilt free, as it is culturally acceptable, to just pick up the Sun. It doesn't matter that the reading of it is a complete waste of our time- everyone's doing it!

Our purchases depend entirely upon the choices available to us at the moment of purchase- and yes, reading about someone else's relationship problems is sort of interesting, and you have to  be a strong woman indeed to choose the apple instead of the cupcake, if both are within arms reach- but in the long run, is this going to build the kind of society and legacy that we want to build?

A culture of instant gratification, excess on every level, obsession with the trivial.

I think no; and surely it is the  media who are responsible for reinforcing the Zeitgeist- as they are the cultural glue which pass on and reflect our cultural norms.

The concern is that they're not in fact reflecting cultural norms accurately, but in fact picking and choosing those elements most designed to shock- as if they were scripting an action movie. This is fine if the distinction is made between fact and fiction, drama and real life- but too often it's repackaged as reality.

"Vanguard" is defined, according to the thefreedictionary.com, as "The foremost position in an army or fleet advancing into battle. 2. a. The foremost or leading position in a trend or movement"..


Well, we all secretly yearn to be revolutionaries, don't we? :)


For lack of a better plan, and being somewhat impetuous (and also rather importantly in possession of too much free time as I'm unemployed!) I'm just going to start writing articles and hope that there are some like-minded people out there who might do me the honour of following my blog.


Refrain: If you're interested in Vintage eBooks please do me a favour and check out: Lady Vanguard Books Thanks!