Pictures from Nils
Edward Genson – one of Conrad Black’s high powered legal team – has difficulty walking and rides around on an electric scooter. At a preliminary hearing the crush of cameramen around him was so bad that he was knocked to the ground.
This time the bearded attorney managed to remain firmly seated, with the aid of numerous court officials holding back the photographers, cameramen and the odd radio journalist.
There are reckoned to be about 400 journalists etc here for the trial. The biggest contingent come from Canada where Black began his controversial career, but there are plenty from Britain and the USA as well. And it’s easy to believe the total figure having seen the massed ranks of cameramen and photographers in the ‘press pen’ in the lobby of the court and forming a massive scrum around the arriving lawyers.
The irony is that we all missed Conrad Black’s arrival! He slipped in through a side entrance while we were all distracted by the arrival of his lawyers. We should have remembered that Lord Black is a keen student of military history. And one of the oldest military strategies is creating a diversion.
Later he sat in court, impassively watching as the judge interviewed potential jurors. The questions were often mundane – would their employers continue to pay them during a long trial, had a family member had a recent run-in with the law and so on. The answers were from people leading ordinary workaday lives.
But the twelve eventually chosen will decide – at the end of the trial – whether the former press baron who lived like a billionaire is guilty or not. And if they do find him guilty Lord Black could spend the rest of his days in jail.
There's high drama here. But is the media over-estimating the importance of the Conrad Black story because he used to be a media mogul? What do you think?
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To be honest, this case doesn't seem any different than others that have gone on over the recent years (Enron, WorldCom, Kozlowksi (Tyco) , etc.) I'm fairly certain that it shouldn't be getting as much airtime as it is, at least in these early stages. After all, the trial hasn't even heard opening arguments yet! It hasn't stopped any of the papers, though. Because it's a trial of someone who was once inside the media village as the proprietor of newspapers, they seem to be going overboard (no, that's NOT a coded reference to another, now deceased, newspaper proprietor!) Is there any chance we can have the minial reporting of the case, at leasty until there are substanvtive things to report?
Great pics Nils! Oh and talking of great pics ... Carolyn on the photo section.... wonderful! Now all you've got to do Sequin is add some fake tan, put some shoe polish on your eyebrows, buff up the skin shine, and you could look like the old fool at the top of the blog! Tee hee!
Great photos and great blog.
Great blog and great photos. :-)
Hee, hee, FF, good joke. You're obviously drinking a nice cup of Maxwell House (other puns are available).
But Nils! You don't do yourself justice. I m ean, to refer to yourself as 'the odd radio journalist'. I'm sure you're not.
There must be several there. I've met a few in my time; some very odd. So relax.
OOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
The theme tune!!!!!!!!
Mmmm, I wish we still had that theme tune -- brought back such happy memories too :-)
Cracking program tonight team - I enjoyed it all.
and well done to CQuin for changing tone and still asking the question to the Minister for Evasion and Dodging the questions about the number of tvs etc.
And a hook!!! a verifiable hook! to tempt us to listen in tomorrow...
Well, thumbs up from me.
Who was that eric mayor? He was the future once.... ho ho.
nikki noodle
xx
Carl (13ish)
That's a bit rude.......
Mollyxx
Just been 'Listening Again' - Carolyn's persistance paying off whilst interviewing Sean Woodward. Pretty cool questioning Carolyn!
Just listened back to the programme. I agree with GM above on the Digital TV Interview.
I think you got the point across though!
Alas I was distracted from listening live, as both Fifi and BigSister were distracting me on another medium -- however thank goodness for 'Listen again'!
It was worth it just to hear the old theme though -- and you, of course, Carolyn!
Morning Sequin,
May I say it was a very nice tribute you did to the 75 years of Broadcasting House. Was that Mrs Mair's wee boy Eddie, that I heard, was it really him presenting Housewives choice? It certainly sounded like him. Let's face it, he must have started somewhere. By the way I think the tune was In a Party Mood played by the Bosworth Orchestra. Happy days. Radio was in black and white then you know.
Keep :-)
Good lord the theme tune! Brings back memories.
The questioning of Sean Woodward was absolutely excellent, Carolyn. He never stood a chance although I was not sure whether he was dodging the question, or simply didn't know the answer (which was an out-right "YES!").
I also found the allotment thing interesting as I have an allotment (not for fashionable yuppie reasons) and it took mine a while to come through - and this was a few years ago! In my view, more land should be set aside for allotments by councils, although this will never happen given that it makes no money and a nice empty field is just far too attractive for a developer to dig up and stick lots of tiny boxes on there to sell for £300,000 a piece. My biggest worry is that councils will see this latest fad as an opportunity to put the 'rent' up to hundreds of pounds per annum.
Re Frances O (6)
AAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH!!!
The theme tune!!
H.
O Humph!
Trouble is, that tune's got stuck in my head now.
Will you all stop going on about the theme tune??? NO, NO, NO -- IT MUST NOT BE REINSTATED! After all, apart from it being depressng and taking us back to the 1980s (gaaahhhh!), we would lose valuable seconds of the devine Eric (or Sequin of course). MORE ERIC NOT LESS!!!
:-)
I'm sure I said something here.
Appy (16) Well at least Sequin mentioned in her piece on the prog (Thursday) and blog (Friday) that it was not going to return! My question is that in that case why did they choose to re-play it on the "this is what we have been doing over the last 75 years"? Can they not just let sleeping theme tunes lie?
H.
Re: Appy - I think it was more 90's than 80's
/radio4/news/ram/pm_sig1996.ram
What IS happy music for you then? - perhaps we could start PM with a burst of the majic roundabout.
Thany you, Jonnie @ 19 for the link to the tune
This is, I believe, the first time that I have heard the PM programme introduced with music. I think that it is superb!
Yey Jonnie! The Magic Roundabout!! My mother tells me I did love that music -- I can't really remember. I am sure I remember being depressed by the PM music after school, and I definitely left school before 1996! What's going on here then?