NO LORD A-LEAVIN'

Gather 'round, children! And let me tell you the story of the Black Lord who had all the money in the world and knew all the most famous people and who believed he had all the power there was, so that he needn't care a jot or tittle for the rules the rest of us are expected to live by.

Well, it seemed that one day, some nasty, little people (who obviously envied him for all his wealth and friends and power) dragged him in front of a judge and claimed he'd been stealing gold from his own companies' treasure chests and then carting off and destroying the evidence of what he'd done when he thought someone was about to catch him at it.

And the mean, old judge sat and listened and banged his gavel and sent the Black Lord off to Florida - not the nice part, where he had his mansion, or to Disney World or Palm Beach or any place like that, but to Coleman Federal Correctional Complex to get corrected, where he couldn't wear his ermine robes or sleep late or play golf.

And he couldn't get any help from Canada where he'd been born, because he'd thumbed his nose at them when the Prime Minister tried to tell him he couldn't, by law, be Baron Black of Crossharbour and a citizen of the country at the same time.

But the Baron couldn't help being baronial. He'd been that way all his life, when he was pitched out of one college for allegedly selling stolen exam papers and from another for "insubordinate behaviour" or when he was busy being a media baron.

But what did he care?!

He was rich... and getting richer... and richer... and owned newspapers and hung out with really famous people and had tea with the Queen and got married to a pretty second wife who was just as snobbish as he was.

So, when Tony Blair told Her Majesty, "You should make this guy a Lord." She said, "OK."

But once he was convicted in the U.S., he had to give up his seat in the House Of Lords. And when he thought of running back to Toronto, they said, "Sorry! We don't let foreigners with a rap sheet in!" And with the appeals of his conviction being rejected by other nasty judges, things were looking pretty bleak.

And he remembered how, at a book signing in Toronto some time before his trial, he'd  been surprised to see that so many of his old chums had failed to show up for the event. And the Black Lord turned to his Lady and asked, "Would you love me if I wasn't rich?" And as cool as an iceberg, she replied, "No, of course not!" And when he got that hurt puppy dog look in his eyes, she quickly explained, "Because you wouldn't be you if you weren't rich!"

And that made him feel better.

And just before Christmas, children, the Baron tried one more time to get his sentence quashed - or at least reduced - and failed. So, today, as the song goes, "He's stuck in Coleman Prison and time keeps draggin' on. This Lord wont be a-leavin', he's gotta be a con."

I tell you this story in the spirit of Charles Dickens, who (better than anyone) understood the importance at this time of year of remembering that, no matter how bad things may seem for us, there's always someone else for whom they're even worse!

(Scroll down to see any days of THE TWELVE DAYS OF CHRISTMAS you may have missed. Tomorrow: A CRAVEN PIPER FLEEING.)