Gamey indeed

Two more obnoxious characters than Conrad Black and Ann Coulter I cannot imagine. Wait a minute - Barbara Amiel is right up there on the obnoxiousness scale - perhaps a threesome is in order. This is Connie's unique take on Ann:

With her long blonde hair, micro-dresses that may incite the prurient to hope for an occasional fleeting glimpse of her underwear and photographs on her book jackets of her in leather dresses, arms akimbo, like a stern but voluptuous school mistress, she is not, as Mr. Moore wrote, “faux glam.” She is eccentric, alluring and slightly outrageous, with a hint of being a bit gamey.

Conrad Black: Ann Coulter

Connie had better start brushing up.

Conrad Black reports to jail today but, never fear, his demonstrated facility with language should enable him to pick up Prison Slang with very little effort. I'm predicting his next book will be a heartrending tale of bitches and screws. He'll be referencing The Prison Lexicon instead of The Oxford Dictionary.

Connie hates Peter... and his silly hat

Conrad Black doesn't like Peter Newman's writing nor does he care for his hat. In the National Post article, A Peddler Of Gossip, Well Past His Prime Black gives Newman a verbal horsewhipping:

Newman claimed an intimate knowledge of my wife's and my sex lives, with each other and elsewhere. He knows nothing of these subjects; the passages are frequently defamatory. Only a qualified psychotherapist could say what would possess an author who takes himself seriously to write such drivel. His principal comment on my current legal travails has been to regale Canadian television viewers with predictions that I will spend many years being sexually assaulted in U.S. correctional institutions. I think not, but I will leave that one also to the psychotherapists.

And this paragraph is even more cruel:

Now 78, shambling about in his ridiculous sailor's cap, bilious and at least verbally incontinent, Newman is pitiful, but not at all sympathetic. Canada and Canadian letters and journalism would benefit from his subsidence.

I sincerely hope that Newman responds with a figurative bitch slap. I'll keep you posted.

Conrad Black Monopoly

Poor Conrad, he bought up all the properties and then drew this card:



He was so sure he'd pick this one:



Oh well, c'est la vie.
Wishful Monopoly card via Scribd

Black Declares War On US

Not that long ago Connie's feelings about the US were rather benign:

"Despite its legal vagaries, the United States remains the indispensable country of Western civilization of the last century, a society of laws in a largely lawless world, and a country overwhelmingly composed of decent people."

Apparently that was then. This is now. All it took was a little personal experience to change his mind:

Nixon was innocent - and so am I, says an unrepentant Black :

"Conrad Black, the deposed newspaper proprietor and media mogul, has smashed the etiquette normally expected of a man in the midst of a fraud trial that could land him in prison for the rest of his life, by publicly lambasting the case against him as 'bullshit' and declaring 'war' on the United States. "

Luckily They Did It On Their Shareholders' Dollar

Conrad Black had this to say about his $565,326 trip to Bora Bora:

We felt like geriatric freaks among a sea of honeymooners – loutish young men and their perky wives. Shortly after we arrived on Bora Bora we discovered the island was in the throes of a dengue fever epidemic and we spent the rest of our time there applying insect repellant and sweltering indoors. More at TheStar.com

My heart goes out to him! Poor old Babs was not quite as perky as the other wives? It's certainly not for lack of throwing money at the problem but, face it Connie, she is in her mid-sixties. Hell, even the Nag isn't as perky as she used to be (not quite the Old Grey Nag yet, but getting there). Take comfort, Tubby, in the fact that you didn't have to spend your own hard earned funds on this vacation from hell, just other people's.

What To Wear To One's Husband's Trial

I hope never to have to face this particular dilemma. I have a hard enough time choosing the day's outfit from my meagre selection of turtlenecks and worn cords. I hope only to be warm enough and that the fabric will not chafe.
Barbara Amiel's future rides on making the right impression on the jury at her husband's trial. If she chooses the wrong outfit her only contact with Connie will be conjugal visits in a trailer at the Big House.

Daniel Horowitz, a veteran criminal defence lawyer, reckons that a toned down, gloomy outfit could prove ill-fitting.
He said: "She's Imelda Marcos. She has got to be unapologetic for her excesses. Turning up in anything less than a flamboyant outfit, and the jury will know that she's messing with us, trying to fool us."

Personally I don't think she should make too much of an effort. She and Connie will look just fine in their everyday attire:

Good Luck With This

Conrad Black's lawyers are trying to make sure that the jury hearing his criminal case isn't packed with people who dislike Canadians, feel most corporate executives are crooked or view people called “Lord” differently.

Where on earth are they hoping to find people who don't hold one or more of these views? Or maybe they're not thinking earth? Perhaps they plan "to boldly go where no man has gone before."

Shades of Black

Jennifer Wells on Shades of Black, airing tonight at 8 on CTV. It appears to capture Black's full-blown preposterousness and might be good for a laugh if nothing else is on.

The scene: Black is speaking to his secretary, Shirley, attempting to ask after her well-being, or possibly ask her out on a date.
Says Black: "I just didn't want you to think that I was insensate to your gallant ministrations here."
Poor Shirley. She is gifted a lesson on Napoleon's maxim — "force equals mass times velocity" — and corrected in her pronunciation of "tenebrous," which, says Black, should be "ten-E-brous." (Really? Not in my dictionary.)
Shirley marries Conrad but later falls for a priest, which I guess explains why she takes to reading a book entitled Liturgy Now at the breakfast table.
Shirley divorces Conrad, who turns to Barbara Amiel, offering this come-on: "I've been looking for a suitable companion in the wake of my own domestic disturbance and I can't help noting how very well the two of us get on."
One can only hope that March — and thereby the Black trial — gets here soon. In the interim the fallen titan has been reduced to a cartoon.

Oh How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning

These chilly mornings I'm finding it harder and harder to get out of bed. It could be those new 650 thread count sheets (they really do make a difference). Or perhaps I might be feeling a biological need to hibernate. I'm toying with the idea of spending the rest of my life in bed and ran the idea by Mr. Nag this morning. He's in total agreement and has committed to rolling me over periodically so I won't get bedsores. When he's at work he'll enlist the aid of Nag Jr. and Baby Nag.
In the meantime, stories like this almost make it worth getting up in the morning. It takes a big load of schadenfreude to motivate the Nag.