Black Watch: Today’s Top Stories

Goodness but British journalists can be arch—mean, even. After all that goodwill generated by Crossharbour’s contribution to the Post this weekend—about Canada, a former British colony, finally finding her sea legs and behaving like a proper great power—how do our colonial masters repay him (or us, depending on how you look at it)? Why, with nothing but snide, sniggering sarcasm, that’s how. Listen to what that awful Andrew Clark, picking up on Nick Stein’s article, had to say in the Guardian yesterday:

“The disgraced press baron Conrad Black is seeking solace in God as he awaits sentencing in America for embezzling millions of dollars from his Hollinger media empire…. On bail at his beachside mansion in Palm Beach, Black says his faith is providing comfort: ‘It has been helpful…in reading apposite passages from ecclesiastical authors, especially Cardinal Newman, and in conversation with several very knowledgeable clergymen.’The peer, who was stripped of the Conservative whip following his conviction, is passing his evenings sipping good French wine on the terrace of his 21,000-square-foot colonial-style property. He laments that his fall from grace has taken its toll on his social life as invitations become fewer and small talk becomes tricky.‘The subject of these travails becomes an 800-pound gorilla nobody mentions,’ writes Black. ‘We and other polite people don’t want to talk about it, but it is hard to ignore, and some awkwardness results.’”

Clark’s the guy who, while following Black out of the courtroom on verdict day, called mischievously after him, “Has justice been served Lord Black?” For his part, Black must wonder what he did in a previous life (or rue what he’s done in this life) to deserve a scribe like that.

Conrad Black says, Look around, Canada: Your time has come: Source [National Post]

Black seeks solace in God: Source [The Guardian]