One recurring complaint about the proceedings of the Conrad Black trial is how boring it's become. Ennui settling in has had little to do with the trial in and of itself, though; it's because the details that the prosecution is going through are, to many, really dull.
The business press has long faced this difficulty, so they have spiced up stories about dull business processes with exciting language, especially in the mergers and acquisitions field, although this practice really got its start in the stock reports.
Of all people, Monty Python picked up on this. A large part of the opener to The Meaning Of Life, the saga of the Crimson Permanent Assurance Corporation, is a poke at this practice through taking the purpled prose literally. You'll see this in, amongst other gags, the Crimson buccaneers' use of filing cabinets as cannon; the head of the Real Big Corp. pulling a short sword out of his briefcase; and, the skewering of the computer with the businessman's umbrella in the Very Big Corp.'s boardroom.
Believe it or not, this satire was released at the time that mergers, acqusitions and international takeovers were beginning to take off.
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