



Planning the ultimate gift: those leaping lords are just the start


John Elder

A GIRLFRIEND once gave me a hermit crab for Christmas. He was meant to live for 50 years as a symbol of our everlasting love.

''Do you know how much trouble I went to?'' she said.

The crab died within days, and so did everything else, but I have a message for that elaborately competitive gift-giver: you don't know what trouble is, babe.

Last week, in a bid to stage the greatest Christmas present, like, ever, I wrote to 60 members of the House of Lords: ''I have been asked to assess the viability and costings of the gifts named in the popular song The Twelve Days of Christmas.'' That's right, the French hens, turtle doves and a partridge in a pear tree.

''Can a lord be hired out for the day?'' I asked. ''And would there be an extra cost if he were asked to do some leaping? We need 10 of them and I suppose we could assemble them into a line similar to that made by can-can dancers. Any and all advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated.''

My timing was appalling. As one lord advised: ''For reasons you will appreciate, we are not responding to prank calls from Australia these days. Yours sincerely. Armstrong of Ilminster.''

Lord Ahmed was short and sharp: ''Sorry not interested.''

Dear Lord Dear was friendlier but off message: ''Peers are incorruptible, but sniff the air when a case of port is around. With that in mind, not '10 lords a-leaping, but perhaps '10 lords a-staggering?' Have a very happy Christmas.''

And to you sir!

Thankfully, Lord Faulkner gave the matter serious thought: ''Lords can't be 'hired out' for the day, as that would infringe rules concerning registration of interests … However, you can legitimately say that as members of the House of Lords, [they] are entitled to claim a maximum allowance of £300 [$466] for a day's sitting, the cost of 10 lords (whether leaping or not) would be £3000.

''If you wished to dress 10 lords in their formal robes, you would need to hire them in, as the great majority of today's working peers do not possess ancestral robes of their own. Messrs Ede and Ravenscroft ( would be able to give you a price - they charge us around £170 to hire

us a robe for the state opening of Parliament.

''In the past, '10 lords a-leaping' have been assembled at this time of year for charity, and I suspect that if you wished to get 10 of us together now, you would be expected to make a donation to a suitable good cause.

''I hope this helps. Do come back to me if I can assist further.''

If this suggests the Twelve Days of Christmas gift list is reasonably doable, I regret to inform you otherwise.

1. Partridge in a pear tree For a live partridge call Kevin O'Bryan at Olson Game Birds in Swan Hill, Victoria. Olson's breed 1000 partridges a year, and they ''taste like chicken used to taste''. It costs $25 for an adult bird.

''But we're all out,'' Kevin says. ''Long gone on order.''

A cocktail pear tree can be bought from Yalca Fruit Trees at Nathalia, Victoria, for $28.

However, partridges don't like sitting in trees. ''They're ground birds. You need to threaten them,''

Kevin says.

2. Two turtle doves Easy! Spotted turtle doves tend to travel in pairs and can be easily lured into your backyard with bread crusts. Not an especially glamorous present

but still…

3. Three French hens Doug MacDonald of Olinda, Victoria, breeds faverolles, and a good quality hen costs $60. However, Doug killed off all his birds last year because the French breeding had gone out of them. He's started breeding again ''but I won't sell them because they're not good enough yet.''

4. Four calling birds Those little blackbirds with orange beaks that furtively slip in and out of the bushes. Great singers but not disciplined enough to work as a quartet.

5. Five golden rings The clue here is ''golden'' - meaning cheap. Diva has Golden Band Rings for $9.95. Trudy on the main switchboard says they contain ''no gold whatsoever''.

6. Six geese a-laying Ken Linton in the Hunter Valley sells adult geese for $30 each. ''But you've missed the boat this year,'' Ken says. ''Very few people are breeding them commercially.''

7. Seven swans a-swimming Ken Linton says, ''There was a guy, years ago, selling swans.'' They were white swans, which are imports. The black swans dirtying up civic parks are natives and can't be legally captured. To pull this off, I'd need to take my partridge, tree, hens and so forth to the local lake and set up the party on the shore.

8. Eight maids a-milking. Australian Workers Union organiser Sam Beechey says: ''There are plenty of women working in the dairy industry, and the rate is about $17.36 an hour. I wouldn't get out of bed for that, not at four o'clock in the morning.''

9. Nine ladies dancing Am still waiting to hear back from Noela MacLeod, the national president of the Country Women's Association.

10. Ten lords-a-leaping Sorted.

11. Eleven pipers piping


12. Twelve drummers drumming … can be hired from the Williamstown RSL Pipe Band for $1400 in total. ''But only on weekends or evenings,'' the secretary of the club, Fiona Thomson, says. ''And they are booked out at the moment. We may have to sort something out later in the day.''

Yes, Fiona. Or perhaps I could simply invest in a pair of socks.

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