Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel, Baron and Baroness Black of Crossharbour, are among the most gloriously, cartoonishly villainous couples Canada has ever produced. This past week, he was stripped of his status as Officer of the Order of Canada—but of course, he hasn’t actually been a Canadian citizen since 2001, when he renounced his country of birth in favour of a life peerage in the House of Lords. He’s a newspaper tycoon (actually, tradition as well as a mild pun seem to dictate that I term him a “media baron”) who was convicted of white-collar crimes and served time in a Florida prison. As for Barbara Amiel, she’s a conservative, contrarian columnist who was probably the basis for Zenia in The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood. (Zenia, if you haven’t read it, is preternaturally charming, seduces the husband or boyfriend of each of the other three main characters, and fakes her own death at least once.)
As a pair, they were named to Tatler’s list of couples you’d most want at a party. At one event, they dressed up as Cardinal Richelieu and Marie Antoinette for a costume party. They maintained two apartments in New York, in addition to houses in Toronto, Palm Beach, and London.
Each of them has publicly, prolifically discussed their luxurious lives and legal tribulations. Defensiveness, snobbishness, and obliviousness are hallmarks of their commentary. Can you tell the source of each of the following quotations: Conrad Black, Barbara Amiel, or a Disney villain?
- “Yes, I have had my share of complaints but on the whole I’ve been a saint!”
- “When everyone is finished dancing on my grave, they may be disconcerted to find I am not in it.”
- “I have an extravagance that knows no bounds.”
- “Jewellery is a defining attribute, rather like your intelligence or the number of residences you have.”
- “I live for furs. I worship furs! After all, is there a woman in all this wretched world who doesn’t?”
- “Hang the papers! It’ll be forgotten tomorrow!”
- “I’ve made some terrible mistakes, but not ethical mistakes—not ethical mistakes.”
- “And now, look at me – wasted away to practically nothing – banished, and exiled, and practically starving…”
- “It’s not my fault if in God’s plan he made the Devil so much stronger than a man.”
- “I’ve been persecuted half to death! I don’t have any shame, I am proud of what happened.”
- “Greed has been severely underestimated and denigrated – unfairly so, in my opinion. There is nothing wrong with avarice as a motive, as long as it doesn’t lead to dishonest or anti-social conduct.”
- “You’ve heard of the golden rule, haven’t you? Whoever has the gold makes the rules.”
- “I’ve never been a popular man. And don’t think I don’t know what those back stabbers at court say about me.”
- “It is always best to have two planes, because however well one plans ahead, one always finds one is on the wrong continent.”
- “If you want to get on, you must learn to frighten men.”
- “Conventional wisdom holds that this beautiful moment can’t be preserved forever. But fortunately in this case, the conventional wisdom is mistaken.”
***
ANSWER KEY
Disney villains: 1 (Ursula), 5 (Cruella de Vil), 6 (Cruella de Vil), 8 (Ursula), 9 (Frollo), 12 (Jafar), 13 (Governor Ratcliffe)
Barbara Amiel: 3, 4, 14, 15
Conrad Black: 2, 7, 10, 11, 16
(Sources for Black and Amiel quotations supplied upon request to the curious and horrified.)
Tags: barbara amiel, baron black of crossharbour, canadian heroes, conrad black, humor, kirsten morry, nicole had an erotic dream about conrad black once and she still hasn’t recovered, something something canada
I really hope people want to talk about Barbara Amiel and Conrad Black, because I am utterly obsessed with them.
I am a little too excited to talk about Black and Amiel. Barbara Amiel’s column in Maclean’s was my favourite hate-read (back when I lived in a home that subscribed to Maclean’s).
Fifteen years ago, she wrote this one column, where she complained about how difficult it is to be rich, because she hosted a birthday party for Conrad Black, and it was atrocious to have her lawn covered in tents. She compared it to the set of M*A*S*H.
The whole thing so ridiculous that I clipped the article and took it to my PoliSci 101 seminar, so that we all could revel in it together.
In my old job, I had to read “Maclean’s” and write abstracts for all the articles and the ones by Amiel were ALWAYS nonsensical yet offensive enough that I’d email my only friend coworker some pull quotes and lots of angry emoticons.
The one that really infuriated me most recently is the rape apologia she wrote victim-blaming the girl from Steubenville and Rob Ford gropee Sarah Thomson. It was enough that I wrote an angry letter to the editor. Joke’s on her, though, I was being paid to read it and neither she nor Maclean’s got a penny from me (not that I begrudge Maclean’s anything; it is generally a decent publication. I just hate that they keep printing the rubbish Amiel writes).
How does she manage to be THIS HORRIBLE?
(Also: Maclean’s still runs her nonsense? I don’t think I’ve looked at the magazine, outside of quick glances at the doctor’s office, in a decade. Does she really have an audience, or is everybody hate reading Barbara Amiel?)
I don’t think her column runs regularly anymore – but my family subscribes to Maclean’s, and there she was this week. Count us in as BA hate-readers).
She’s not in every issue but her column runs a couple times a month or so (IME).
My introduction to Conrad Black as a child was a story in Marsha Boulton’s “Letters from the Country,” where she adopts their dog who kept peeing in his shoes. My introduction to Barbara Amiel was a gushing story about her in an old book from the ’70s, gushing about the “gorgeous Montreal socialite.” They seemed so normal and human.
And then I got older and started reading newspapers….
Here’s Toronto Life’s interpretation of Black’s letter to the GG: http://www.torontolife.com/informer/people/2014/0…
As much as I hate them, I can’t stop reading them.
The only way I could determine any of these with certainty is that some of the Disney ones rhyme.
OH MY GOD, THE MOUSTACHE-TWIDDLING EVILDOERS OF CANADA! These are my favourite villains ever. I mean, they even DRESS UP AS ~VILLAINS FOR PARTIES.
… real talk, #15 sounds like an official Toast stance, y’all.
Seriously, I figured that was a Mallory quote thrown in there to throw us off.
Finally a quiz on the-toast. I want to know what random character I am from beloved book/tv show/movie so I can share it on facebook we need one every day thanks.
Did it turn out you were a discredited Baron and former Officer of the Order of Canada who dresses as Cardinal Richelieu for funsies? ME TOO. Just like I get on allllllll those Zimbio quizzes.
Handy tip for people in positions of power: don’t costume yourselves as noted and often-reviled dilettantes of history, especially if they’re noted for the profligate ways and, y’know, being beheaded. It’s poor form.
I think they need to have a person whose job is to approve their outfits whenever they go out in public. See also: Prince Harry.
FANCY DRESS IS NOT THAT HARD. No dictators, no reviled historical figures whom you not-so-secretly emulate, no changing your skin tone or appropriating dress from cultures marginalized by your own culture.
Yeah, but that would involve being told “no,” which is obviously unacceptable.
Or is it the finest, most ballsy form ever on display, like unto a single couple being in charge of Canada’s entire supply of public villainy, as versus silent villainy which is our governing party.
Oh gosh, the whole Conrad Black saga is the best! The Baron recently wrote an article in his National Post proclaiming his innocence to all and sundry and the end of which he promised to send copies of letters of reference composed by worthies to anyone who would request them. One of these letters was from Henry Kissinger, who is of course EXACTLY the person you want to vouch for your moral character. I sent a very facetious message to the address asking for the letters, during the course of which I made myself out to be a comically terrible plutocrat with multiple secret families, an extensive criminal record, and an entrepreneur soliciting money for a project that would see GIFs performed live to some obscure but profitable end. To give a flavour for how unsubtle this missive was, I signed it: Dalton Morgan Mayhew Alexander-McKibben II, Esteemed Toronto Stockbroker. Not only did Black write back, from his secretary’s e-mail account, but he asked for more information about the live GIF project! I don’t know if he was being sotto voce self-aware or just failed to see how OTT the letter obviously was. Anyway I can tell people I correspond with a British noble, one small step closer to my Tattler ingénue dreams.
I <3 this so much! Can you copy the letter you sent here?
For sure! I’ll paste in my letter and Black’s reply.
Dear Baron Black:
I write apropos your column in the National Post which appeared today. You indicate a willingness to render a copy of the letters furnished by Dr. Kissinger and Mr. Safer on your behalf to any interested citizens who request them. This message constitutes such a request.
I am interested to see what fine sobriquets these distinguished gentlemen have offered on your behalf, believing as I do in the rightness of your cause. I too have been jealously assaulted by lesser persons who in their Poujadist ardour saw to sully my good name though frivolous litigation and unseemly public calumnies. Of course we know that what the socialist knaves call ‘fraud’ or ‘money laundering’ is simply the cost of being a responsible businessman in the modern age. I should like to see the vacuous dole-bound leaches make as much money as persons of our ken are able to with their spurious ethics and empathy!
Before closing this letter I should like to clue you into a little business opportunity that might pique your interest. I know the internet is presenting serious challenges to the newspaper industry. I don’t really understand it myself – my mistresses’ younger daughter (who may or may not be mine – discretion has its advantages) keeps telling me about it. Since my recent legal troubles have given me a chance to consider different opportunities for using my capital (as least before those pernicious lawyers get it all!) I came up with a new idea for an internet company. I call it LiveGIF, my (potential) daughter keeps showing me this GIF things which are like little wordless plays on the internet that keep going and going. And I said, ‘You know what if someone did these in real life!’ Of course my daughter was like ‘Dalton (I don’t let her call me dad for fear of developing some kind of attachment, I already have three legitimate children in Switzerland whose need for affection causes me great stress) you’re lame’ but I think it’s a real winner! My friends agree, and I hope you’d be interested in getting in on the ground floor as well!!
Thank you for your consideration in this matter. I look forward to reading the letters. I do hope you are bundling up and drinking lots of hot cocoa during this cold spell.
With Sincere Assurance of My Highest Consideration,
Dalton Morgan Mayhew Alexander-McKibben II
Esteemed Toronto Stockbroker
P.S. Give my regards to Babs! Even back at U of T she was a real firecracker!
Dear Mr. McKibben,
Thank you for your message. These people know that there is no evidence that I did anything illegal but are so malicious they could not give me a hearing, acknowledge my letter, or even issue an honest press release. It is a disappointing turn of events, like almost everything that has preceded it. But this must be almost the end of it, and your generous words are gratefully received.
I’m no authority on the Internet but feel free to send me some material on your venture. Thanks also for the rather humorous glimpse of your personal life.
Best wishes to you.
Yours,
Conrad Black
I’m peeing my pants this is so delightful
OH MY GOD you are a genius. You frighten and delight me in equal measure. And the postscript made me cry with silent laughter at my desk. Please, please keep us appraised of any future correspondence with Mr. Black, you mad, glorious creature of chaos.
I dearly dearly wish I had like a powerpoint about making and distributing live GIFs I could send him and keep going down this particular rabbit hole. But I didn’t plan ahead because I figured there was NO CHANCE he’d respond to that particular letter!
“If you want to get on, you must learn to frighten men.”
Barbara Amiel, misandrist icon?
I can only think of this. [SPOILER for S2 of “Slings and Arrows.”] WHO DOES THIS? Who dresses as Marie Antoinette and Cardinal Richelieu? Is the S&A scene a reference to Black and Amiel?
They’re all Disney villains.
Aren’t they?
Definitely cartoons.
“If you want to get on, you must learn to frighten men.” They sound atrocious/fascinating, but I do rather want that on a T-shirt (or would if there were a way to keep any and all resulting profits away from either of them),
Actually, could you tell us the source for that particular quote, Kirsten? I find myself curious as to the context in which she expressed that sentiment…
http://www.macleans.ca/article.jsp?content=200411…
Somebody heard her confess brazenly that “sex is no good without pain.” Another report claimed that she poured eight spoons of sugar into her tea and announced, “If you want to get on, you must learn to frighten men,” which she did. In a profile of Amiel, senior writer Judith Timson described a memorable day in 1979 when Amiel sent the magazine’s writers, celebrating a birthday, into a tizzy: “She had walked into the room, accepted a piece of birthday cake and then promptly, before she could eat it, began retching, vomiting blood and bile into the nearest wastebasket. Typical of the Amiel curse, at least one staffer thought she had staged it.”
!!!
Thanks Nicole!
Truly an astounding array of Amiel/Black anecdotes. This thread is so great.
I DID NOT KNOW THIS ABOUT THE ROBBER BRIDE BUT IT IS MY FAVOURITE BOOK EVER THANK YOU THANK YOU
The Robber Bride is one of my favourites too!
Also this is my favourite video clip of Conrad Black, in which he waxes leaves with Rick Mercer. (And by “favourite video clip of Conrad Black,” I mean the only one I have seen except for excerpts of his interview with Rob Ford where I mostly wanted to throw things at both of them.)
I love that video too, and it’s the source of quotation 16! He is hardly villainous at all there.
I’m so out of the loop that I have no idea what’s up with Conrad Black these days, and I don’t even know who Barbara Amiel is, but before I rush off to research this, I wanted to share with you all that, as a small child, I pranced around the house repeating #5 over and over again. And I am now a grown woman who is totally into animal welfare mostly, but also owns nearly a dozen fur coats. Though none are Dalmatian, tragically.
Please tell me there will be a regular “Canadian Villainy” column on The Toast.
If Conrad Black is no longer a member of the Order of Canada, what about my cat, Lord Conrad Blackcat? (He was adopted the day Conrad Black was found guilty, or possibly the day he was sentenced.) I’ll have to keep this quiet at home.
Also, my most memorable Barbara Amiel column was the one where she said she didn’t believe that spousal abuse really happened that often because everyone likes a little hitting in bed.
If Conrad Black is no longer a member of the Order of Canada, what about my cat, Lord Conrad Blackcat? (He was adopted the day Conrad Black was found guilty, or possibly the day he was sentenced.) I'll have to keep this quiet at home.
Also, my most memorable Barbara Amiel column was the one where she said she didn't believe that spousal abuse really happened that often because everyone likes a little hitting in bed.