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So it’s now Lord Black.
I personally find it completely offensive that there still exists, within the British Empire, an institution whose very foundation rests upon assumptions about class and lineage that should be utterly repellent to any democrat. The House of Lords is a bastion of exclusive White Rich Male Privilege (no matter how many token women and blacks are added) and British Upper Class Twittledom. And now, Mr. Twittledom himself, Conrad Black, who started a newspaper (and did a good job of it) just so he could show bad pictures of Jean Chretien and declare the Alliance winners before the election was held, is a Brit and a Lord and gets to wear hysterically funny costumes that remind me of the arch stereo-type of British Lords as, well, er, gay. Shall we say, fops. Precious. Delicate and righteous.
It’s Barbara Amiel who really annoys me, though. She once wrote an interesting article on Leonard Cohen, and I believe admitted that she agreed to strip for him in exchange for the interview. Correct me if my memory fails me, Barbara. She also wrote an article for Chatelaine once-- my memory is clearer about this-- in which she provided a vigorous defense of the art of gold-digging, which is, of course, the art of offering sex in exchange for position, power, and vast amounts of capital. Other than the prostitution angle, I suppose, not much to quibble with there, but it should suggest to us that perhaps Lord Black wasn’t himself so passionate about the cause of privilege as his wife, who now gets to be known as Lady Golddigger. Perhaps Mr. Cohen, recently descended from Mount Baldy (I kid you not) would consent to strip for the aristocracy.
The only thing that disturbs me is that she was a fan of Leonard Cohen. She should have been a fan of Frank Sinatra instead. Maybe she was. That would have been perfect. Frank was exactly the type of man who could see the value in an expensive Lordship. Perhaps she admired both. That’s possible nowadays. There was a time when any person acquainted with the work of Leonard Cohen could be counted on to be a dissident in some way, and remarkable for independence of thought, and, perhaps, a passionate spirit. Nowadays, it is obligatory to honor Mr. Cohen, which is precisely what is beginning to make Mr. Cohen boring. I say it makes Mr. Cohen boring not because his earlier work has become boring, but because Mr. Cohen has begun to believe in it himself.
Which leads me to the question of how one becomes a Lord. Well, it’s quite simple, really. If you have any doubts about my insinuations above just ask yourself a really easy question: is there any way that you or anyone you know could become a Lord? Yes, there is, of course. You simply have to have enough money.
Copyright © 2001 Bill Van Dyk All rights reserved.
