After what seems like a million pages (it’s actually 310), Conrad Black has finally been indicted. Boosted by testimony from David Radler (whom Black calls “the nasty gnome from Chicago”), the U.S. government is seeking a 95-year prison sentence. Plot-wise, we expected things to pick up around now—but instead Black just returns to his favourite topics: being poor, being persecuted by the media, and being friends with Elton John.

Believe it or not, Conrad is even more impoverished in this chapter than he was in the last. Liens are being taken out on all his homes (weren’t those sold already?), and the ever-noble Barbara goes behind Conrad’s back to sell her jewellery to “various oily gem dealers.” Black seems to be going slightly mad: at one point he even sets up a cardboard shelter in his garden room for lost ladybugs.

Seriously, Black’s basically a member of the 99 per cent now. Yet he’s still grateful the Man hasn’t taken everything away from him: at least he still has that sprawling, ostentatious Bridle Path mansion.

Also, did you know he’s friends with famous people? This time, he gives up trying to be casual about it, rattling off an actual list of celebrity friends. No surprise, it’s a collection of daffy eccentrics, including Dame Edna, Anna Wintour, Rush Limbaugh, Joan Collins, Ann Coulter and, of course, Sir Elton and David Furnish. (We’d totally go to that dinner party.)

Meanwhile, Black’s civil trial continues with a couple of small victories: the tax evasion charges and non-competition payment allegations are thrown out. Of course, prosecutor Eric Sussman then sticks him with the new charge of laundering money from Hollinger Inc. to finance Hollinger International. Zzzzzzzzz.

Oh, and somehow amid all the trials and hobnobbing and entomology, Black finds the time to write a 400,000-word biography of Richard Nixon.

In the words of the Lord:

• On his suffering: “On Christmas day, I read the book of Job. I discovered that while Job had endured more severe oppression than I had, he had been much less patient.”

• On Richard Nixon: “I’m not a bit like Richard Nixon, though in most respects he was an admirable person with whom comparisons would be flattering.”

•  On being the most overachieving client Eddie Greenspan ever had: “I wrote a 72-page dissection of the contradictory remarks and testimony of Breeden, Thompson, Kravis, Burt, Heath and Kissinger, as well as an outline of a response to all the counts.”

• On the depths of evil: “The posturing of seedy journalists, suddenly made over as Victorian dowagers, bandying about censorious descriptions of totally innocent people, was especially odious. Being removed from Christmas card lists was particularly irritating.”

Over the past year, the heated cash-for-gold feud between Harold Gerstel (a former protege of Cashman Russell Oliver) and Jack Berkovits has been a Toronto media sensation (see Rob Hough’s trip down the rabbit hole from our December issue). Turns out the Canadian press aren’t the only ones baffled by the death threats, public arguments and underhanded advertising that have turned the pair’s neighbouring jewellery stores, at Bathurst and Glencairn, into a war zone (Gerstel’s shop was mysteriously fire-bombed last December). In the current issue of the New Yorker, Calvin Trillin (he of the great poutine debate) has a feature story on the tumult. And while we’re always chuffed when our southern neighbours take an interest in our humble affairs, things often come out just a little bit funny. Here, five things we learned from the New Yorker about Toronto’s cash-for-gold brouhaha.

1. Russell Oliver has been shameless for a really long time.

You might call him the grand old man of the cash-for-gold business, if that phrase can be applied to someone who has been seen in a television commercial emerging from a phone booth in a spandex superhero costume to proclaim himself Cashman. Oliver came to my attention in 1999, when Time Warner, which holds the trademark for another superhero who emerges from a phone booth, filed a trademark-infringement suit against him—a suit that he treated as a gift of publicity wrapped in legal papers. I particularly admire one argument he made in his defense: “too fat to fly.”

2. Shamelessness begets more shamelessness.

In 2006, with gold at more than $600 an ounce, Gerstel and Oliver parted ways—not amicably—and Gerstel opened his own store…He immediately began his own series of television commercials. They show up on the Internet occasionally on “worst commercials” lists. The characters show no evidence of having acting experience in that wider world of the dramatic arts beyond Harold the Jewellery Buyer productions.

3. To jewellers, cash-for-gold is a dirty business.

“My instinctive reaction was that I don’t want him to move across the street from me, because it’s a dirty business, but I never expressed that.” A storefront cash-for-gold operation has an obvious attraction for someone who wants both and is carrying a weapon.

4. Cash-for-gold becomes a much less dirty business when no one wants to buy jewellery and everyone wants to sell gold.

“Business got worse and business got worse and business got worse,” he told me. “Gold was climbing. The public was not buying jewellery. My overhead was going up. More respectable people were selling. If Birks, the most respectable of all jewellers in Canada, can buy gold from the public, then who the hell am I to say it’s beneath me?”

5. Tacky ads apparently work—until they’re subverted.

A word was added above the sign of the window of [Berkovits’s] Easy Cash for Gold. The word was “Herald.” The Toronto Star ran a picture of the sign, along with an interview with a woman from Etobicoke, Ontario, who had come to sell jewellery to the Harold she’s seen on television and had ended up in Berkovits’s store instead. Soon, Berkovits had expanded the sign to cover the entire storefront window, with a huge “HERALD—The King of Jewellery” and two red rectangles that said “As Seen on TV.”

(Image: Liam Mogan)

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(Image: Liam Mogan)

Beard Maintenance
Garrison’s by the Park
907 Queen St. W., 416-703-8602
Garrison’s is the newest in a wave of retro-cool cut-and-shave barbershops in the city, and its simplicity is laudable (there are cuts, and there are shaves). If you ask nicely, there are also options for bearded men in need of a little pampering: heavily tattooed barbers Alan Brown and Sydney Woods trim and sculpt, pricing on a beard-by-beard basis. And while this Trinity Bellwoods spot earns a recommendation for the complimentary beer, good music and steady off-colour jokes alone, it’s also worth mentioning the hot towel shave, which might just be the most fun you’ll have being touched north of the neck. From $15.

(Image: Liam Mogan)

Tattoo Removal
Fading Fast
120 Eglinton Ave. E., 10th floor, 416-322-2922
You’re 34, you work in finance, and you wish like hell your early-’90s Grateful Dead–worshipping self had thought twice about getting a dancing bear permanently inked on your upper arm. The good news: Fading Fast can turn back the clock. The Toronto shop’s laser removal procedure works by directing pulses of intense light at that barbed wire or ex-girlfriend’s name, causing the pigment to fragment into smaller particles that are then naturally erased by the body’s immune system. It isn’t quick (most removals require several sessions) or cheap (even the smallest epidermal artwork costs close to $1,000 to erase), but it works.

(Image: Liam Mogan)

Artful mani
Tips Nail Bar
844A Danforth Ave., 416-405-8477
Leeanne Colley’s hands are so steady, she could have been a surgeon. Instead, she’s a nail artist, and her meticulous work on customers’ tiny canvases has earned her a lot of groupies. Her five-year-old salon, Tips Nail Bar, has become a hotbed for manis à la mode, and customers gladly schlep across town for the latest novelty designs. Colley offers nearly 200 shades of polish in brands including Chanel, Deborah Lippmann and YSL. More important than her au courant colours is what she does with them: beyond trendy moon manis, she incorporates matte lacquers into the mix and plays around with funky variations on a classic French, which she has taken to the extreme on the pages of fashion editorials across Canada. Anyone squinting hard enough at the Greta Constantine, Pink Tartan and Lucian Matis fall 2011 runway shows would have seen her designs. And FYI, she’s a stickler for hygiene; leather loungers and stainless basins are her answer to questionable jet bath pedicure chairs. From $18.

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Yonge Street’s poshest stretch, from Ramsden Park up to the Summerhill LCBO, has two strong suits: food and decor. Locals from the tree-lined side streets keep the shops going during the week, while the weekend brings floods of shoppers from further afield. Here, our list of 23 essential restaurants, food shops, furniture stores, clothing boutiques and beauty parlours along tony Toronto’s main drag. By Laura Cameron, Carley Fortune, Matthew Hague and Renée Suen | Photography by Jamie Hogge, Emma McIntyre, Renée Suen and Jenna Marie Wakani

START THE ROSEDALE-SUMMERHILL TOUR »

West Edmonton's Thomas Sabo location (Image: Supplied by Thomas Sabo)

Yorkdale continues its pursuit to become the luxury haven no one asked for. To recap: over the last year, the mall brought in big names like Burberry and Victoria’s Secret, and in January, it announced yet another multimillion-dollar expansion. We thought they might be onto something—that is, until this news reminded us how Yorkdale is the Vegas strip of malls: a Thomas Sabo flagship store is on its way.

West Edmonton's Thomas Sabo location (Image: Supplied by Thomas Sabo

Haven’t heard of the German jewellery brand? Fair enough. We’ve only written about it once since its products hit Canadian boutiques in 2009. But they’ve definitely been around, lurking in the showcase shadows, wooing editors, throwing tasteful parties at Ultra and, for good measure, intimate gatherings in ironic Junction furniture shops.

So, when Thomas Sabo announced the April opening of its first Toronto flagship (there are already stores in Edmonton and Montreal), we think we may know why the buzz isn’t palpable. Tiffany & Co.’s silver dynasty is just down the hall, and Sabo’s punk-lite sterling offerings peak at their “Charm Club” line ($14–$124; ultimately, just another trendy charm bracelet). Even though Sabo is endorsed by Proactiv pop tart Katy Perry, we just don’t think there are enough gems to predict a retail riot. We also can’t see a Givenchy-clad waif eating a croissant outside their window, which is obviously the mark of any jeweller’s success.

(Image: Adam Rankin)

You’re the chief of laboratory medicine at the Scarborough Hospital. What do you do, exactly?
Almost every patient who comes into our hospital has an encounter with the lab. Eighty per cent of treatment decisions are made on the basis of lab tests. My specialty is cancer diagnosis.

You studied at U of T?
Yes. I came to Canada from Hyderabad, India, in 1968 to do my fellowship in anatomic pathology.

And you raised a family here, too.
My husband, Farokh, studied nuclear physics but now makes fashion jewellery. We have a manufacturing plant in India, and my son, Zubin, helps with the business. My daughter, Sabrena, is a surgeon in Columbus, Ohio.

How did you end up on the police board?
I was approached by the Public Appointments Secretariat, which recruits board members for the province. I also had the option of sitting on a board about climate change, but the Police Services Board wants Toronto to be safe and healthy, and those are also my core values. And I get to do something different than medicine.

Who did you vote for in the last municipal election?
Isn’t voting confidential?

It is, but you have a public profile now, so we hoped you would share.
I have worked with all three parties in the past. Whom I vote for is inconsequential, since I have no political aspirations.

What did you think of the request for a police budget increase when crime in Toronto has gone down 10 per cent in the past decade?
It would be nice to trim without compromising safety. But Chief Bill Blair wasn’t asking for any new officers. The request was to cover salary commitments from previous negotiations. I think we have to realize crime is going down because we have an effective police system. For example, police presence has reduced the crime rates just south of my hospital.

What neighbourhood is that?
Birchmount and Finch—Glendower. It’s a high-crime area. We get a lot of patients in the emergency with gunshot wounds.

Were you here during the G20 weekend?
Yes.

How did you react to some of the stories about police brutality, and seeing some of those images on television?
The authority, the transparency, the communication with the people was not as effective as it should be. But Justice John Morden is leading a review of police actions during the G20, and it would be premature to judge the outcome. One thing I can assure you is that the new Toronto police services board would like to be open and transparent. That is my own commitment, also.

You’re a member of the Zoroastrian Society. Can you tell me about your faith?
We follow the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster. The basic tenets of our religion are simple: Good thoughts. Good words. Good deeds. Whatever I do, I try to do it with these tenets. Sometimes you succeed, sometimes you don’t.

Where do you live and what do you do for fun?
I live in North York. I love to garden. I love to do big-game fishing. My family has gone all over the world, including the Arctic Circle. I am also interested in skeet shooting. My passions are quite eclectic.

You’re also a regular at various galas and fundraisers. You lead a full life.
I’ve been afflicted with breast cancer twice, and it has made me all the more determined to give my very best. It’s made me more compassionate. I could easily be in sunny Florida for six months of the year, but I have chosen this work.

Every craft room in North America has witnessed the creation of some derivation of kitschy jewellery, so it’s refreshing to see Corrine Anestopoulos’s Biko refine the practice by focusing on edited designs with minute, quirky elements. The designer takes found objects—vintage optics, magnifying glasses, kaleidoscopes—and transforms them into functional pendant jewellery. We stumbled upon this working kaleidoscope necklace at Love of Mine, which we liked for the Logan’s Run colour blast and the reminder of a birthday party loot bag. The kaleidoscope necklace is available with a classic rolo-style chain that accommodates extra doodads, baubles and charms. No assembly required. $159.

Love of Mine, 781 Queen St W, 416-368-4999, loveofmineboutique.com.

Lost and Found’s industrial-chic space (Image: Laura Cameron)

The place: Lost and Found, a new clothing boutique and espresso bar, feels right at home in the mixed bag of vintage shops, hair salons and hip restaurants of Little Portugal. Plywood floors and exposed brick walls enclose a space furnished with vintage pieces. Co-owners Zai Rajkotwala and Jonathan Elias offer brands that aren’t available elsewhere in the city. Rajkotwala, a fashion school grad, chooses the women’s clothing and Elias, a former merchandiser for The Gap, buys for men. A third partner, Justin Veiga, handles the coffee side of the business.

The stuff: The prevailing aesthetic in both the men’s and women’s selections here is simple, clean lines. A grey velvet A-line skirt by Charlotte Ronson, (for which the store has exclusive distribution rights in Canada) is an example of the shop’s relaxed but on-trend apparel. At a lower price point are classic Levi’s and jewellery from Joomi Lim and Ax and Apple. A beautiful unisex canvas and leather rucksack by American leather goods company MAKR Carry Goods goes for $165. In the coming weeks, Lost and Found is bringing in clothing by Toronto designer Erin Kleinberg and the Japanese casual wear retailer Uniqlo. The espresso, meanwhile, comes from Chicago’s Metropolis Coffee Company.

The find: A Charlotte Ronson sheath dress ($490) with an asymmetrical lace overlay is an LBD that combines smart tailoring with just the right amount of drape.

Lost and Found, 1255 Dundas St. W., 647-348-2810.

Following Madoff’s 2008 arrest and the government seizure of his assets, the U.S. Marshall Service has auctioned off many of Madoff’s valuables, with profits benefiting the victims of his billion-dollar fraud. However, in the case of Sunday’s auction here in Canada, members of the U.S. Marshall Service cautioned potential buyers to be wary of the items’ authenticity. When questioned, security staff on site refused to identify their employer, and media were refused entry to the centre. Clearly, whoever organized the event possessed Madoff’s appreciation for transparency, or lack thereof.

The Star spoke with Irving Picard, the court-appointed trustee overseeing liquidation of Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC, who warned, “The party who may be selling this may have bought—and this has happened in the United States—may have bought items at one of those auctions and now in turn is auctioning it off again.”

Thankfully, the Oakville auction proved less successful than previous Madoff auctions. In the past, bidders paid up to $500,000 for Ruth Madoff’s diamond engagement ring, but here, the first item at auction (a two-and-a-half-by-four-foot Persian rug) started at $2,500 yet sold for a mere $300. Other items, such as a 16-carat peridot bracelet, also sold at comically low prices. It seems buyers were as skeptical of the auction’s legitimacy as we are. But hey, if these are, in fact, Madoff’s belongings, some people got a pretty good deal.

• Madoff connection creates buzz at Oakville auction [Toronto Star]
• Auction-goers disappointed by ‘Madoff Collection’ [National Post]

Mississauga mayor Hazel McCallion, who turns 90 in a few weeks, just started her 12th (and last) term. Here, 10 things she can’t live without

My daily affirmation
A few years ago, a friend gave me a book called Starting Your Day Right, by Joyce Meyer, which has an inspiring quote for each day of the year. With all of the reports I need to read for work, I don’t have much time for leisure reading, so this is just right. It keeps me upbeat.

My most cherished photograph
It was taken on November 18, 2005, the day I received the Order of Canada. I was surrounded by my children and granddaughter, and it was one of the most memorable days of my life. I keep it in my office.

My Ojibwa bling
The city of Mississauga has always had a special relationship with the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation. The late chief Maurice LaForme gave me a necklace that I wear to the powwow in Hagersville every year, and also as everyday jewellery. You can’t find this kind of beautiful beadwork anymore.

My childhood classic
I first read Black Beauty as a little girl, and it stuck with me—probably because I grew up on a farm in Port-Daniel, on the Gaspé Coast in Quebec, and spent a lot of time with horses. It has a permanent place at my bedside even today.

My hunger buster
A few years ago, I read that walnuts are good for you, and I’ve been eating them regularly ever since. I sprinkle some on my cereal in the morning, and if I don’t have time for lunch, I have a handful of walnuts to tide me over.

My trophy fish
I don’t get out fishing very often anymore, but it has always been one of my favourite pastimes. Some of my best catches are mounted on my office wall. The biggest is a coho salmon, which I caught out on Lake Ontario 20 years ago.

My Irish lullaby
I listen to a lot of classic country at home and in my car, but “Danny Boy” is the song I love most. When I was growing up, my mother would always sing and play piano after dinner, and it was her favourite song. I get teary-eyed when I hear it.

My best friend
I’ve had three German shepherds in the past few decades: first Pal, then Hurricane—yes, I named her after me—and now Missy. German shepherds are smart dogs. The companionship, unconditional love and enthusiastic greetings I get from Missy make every day worthwhile.

My personal produce market
I prefer eating from my own pesticide-free garden. I grow flowers and all kinds of vegetables—green beans, peppers, tomatoes, lettuce—and take great delight in watching them grow and thrive. I do all my own gardening and housework.

My home away from home
I’ve been living in Streetsville for 49 years, but I’m still attached to Port-Daniel and my family there. My nephew lives in the house where I grew up. I visit every few years, and when I’m there I feel like a kid again. It brings back so many wonder­ful memories. It was a simpler time.

(Images: Black Beauty by Carlo Mendoza; walnut by Kevin Dyer/iStock; others by John Cullen)

European Jewellery, Yorkdale Shopping Centre, 3401 Dufferin St., 416-785-9790.