Monday, February 2, 2009

Is Ruth Dudley Edwards falling in love with Baron Conrad Black of Crossharbour?

Apparently lonely women sometimes write letters to prison inmates with whom they then fall in love, and subsequently marry. It seems that renowned Irish columnist Ruth Dudley Edwards has added her name to the list of women who suffer from this unfortunate affliction. She has embarked on a email romance with the jailed Lord Conrad Black, the former newspaper magnate, who was imprisoned for Criminal Fraud. But she hasn’t kept the details of this love affair private. Instead, she has shared every moment of this blossoming romance with the lucky readers of the Sunday Independent.

In a series of bizarre articles in the Sunday Indo, Ruth Dudley Edwards has been publicly cooing about her obsession with Lord Black. She fawns about the “exuberant displays of intellectual prowess” that Black’s emails to her contain. “Prison has not dulled his spirit” sighs the besotted Ruth Dudley Edwards. She slobbers about the “admirable” Black who “quickly set about helping to educate the prison inmates”.

For a while Edwards says she tried to stop thinking about Black and writing columns about him – perhaps in order to stop boring everyone to death. But alas, her plan to forget Black did not work because, confesses Edwards, “I fell to thinking about him again last week”. And low and behold, she wrote yet another simpering column in the Sunday Indo about how great he is, praising Black as “exceptionally loyal”. I presume she is talking about Black’s exceptional loyalty to the shareholders whose money he stole, thus causing him to end up in prison?

In any event, Edwards and her friend Mark Steyn have engaged in a campaign to get Black pardoned by George Bush. Bush thought better of it and rejected the plea to pardon Black – Bush’s first sensible decision after eight years in office.

Before a recent legal appeal against his conviction Black said to Edwards: “I still expect justice to prevail. We soldier on.” The appeal was subsequently thrown out, just like all his other appeals, but that has not stopped Edwards continuing to write in the Sunday Indo about the “misfortunes” and “injustices” that her email paramour has had to endure.

But the battle to clear Conrad Blacks name is not over yet. Oh no! A book is currently being written, Edwards assures us, that will expose “the farrago of outrages that has been inflicted on” Black. The book will “emerge next spring, pulling no punches, and laying this mockery of a [legal] system bare for what it is”. Who is writing this vindication of Conrad Black? Why it’s none other than Baron Conrad Black of Crossharbour himself! When the “book” eventually appears we can expect to enjoy more than one slavering review from the smitten Ruth Dudley Edwards.

What is the source of Ruth Dudley Edwards’ passionate attachment to her jailed beloved? Well, some say it might be due to the fact that he is a Baron, and that Edwards has a weakness for anyone with a title. Edwards had been a long-time hanger-on of someone called Dame Ruth Railton. So Edwards has a history of coming over all starry-eyed in the presence of “aristocrats”. Perhaps that’s what is going on here?

In his mails to Edwards, Black sometimes talks about general political issues of the day. For example, before the recent US election, Black attacked Obama as too “ignorant”, “juvenile” and “hubristic” to be President. “He frightens me” added a trembling Black. “If McCain keeps his wits about him, stays on message, and appears to be alive, he should win” predicted Black, demonstrating yet again his firm grip on reality in another exuberant display of intellectual prowess.

Black has also declared his support for the Irish people who voted No to the Lisbon Treaty. “I was proud of the Irish in the referendum” he announces. Well that will make the people who voted No to Lisbon feel better about themselves.

1 comment:

  1. Very interesting. Ruthie Diddly still hasn't found Jesus, but I suppose Baron Black of Crosswaysshagged is the next best thing.

    She'd better watch her back, though. Barbara Amielticket could get very jealous, and she's been seen in England lately.

    I thought Black made a real ass of himself (no pun intended) when he referred to Mrs. Obama as "callipygian" and disdainfully invited his dumber-than-him readers to "look it up".

    I did, and it will be interesting to see what happens if Bubba gets the same idea about Black when he drops the soap in the shower.

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