Contrasting biographical sketches of Barbara Black

This largely admiring biographical article in the Telegraph makes for an interesting contrast with this one in the Guardian, from 2004. Both have the now-infamous "extravagance" quote, and both mention that Mrs. Black started off with the disclosure that she used to be made fun of for her "scruffy" clothes when a teenager, a little before telling the world about her unbounded extravagance. The writer of the Guardian article treats that self-disclosure skeptically, but the Telegraph writer takes it at face value. Both contain details of Mrs. Black's troubled past, and both call attention to her - well, attractiveness. The Guardian bio juxtaposes Mrs. Black with the 2003 report by the Special Committee headed up by Gordon Paris. It's a fitting one in retrospect, seeing as how both permeate the trial while, in explicit terms, both are part of it only peripherally.

The Globe and Mail columnist quoted in both articles, Margaret Wente, hasn't commented much recently about either of the Blacks. Her latest column devoted to the subject is dated Feb. 24 of this year.


Another, much shorter, piece in the Telegraph relates, to use the author's own words, "a chorus of mockery of the former press baron" in the press itself, "as well as a bout of media navel-gazing."


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Mrs. Black has included an apology for the "vermin" remarks in her latest Maclean's column, as pointed out by Douglas Bell of Toronto Life's Conrad Black Trial blog. [This column of hers has not been webbed yet.]

Also, the Australian has a fashion review that pans her taste in clothes during the trial, although her Thursday outfit was treated somewhat approvingly.