Conrad Black makes new friends in jail

Conrad Black, the disgraced former publisher of the Daily Telegraph and now prisoner number 18330-424 at the Coleman correctional facility in Florida, claims life in jail has its benefits: he is learning to play the piano, which his mother never allowed him to do as a child, there are fewer intrusions than there are in the outside world, and he gets to have his coffee "well-made by Colombian fellow residents".

To mark his first year inside for corporate fraud and obstruction of justice - there are still another five and a half to go - Lord Black of Crossharbour wrote a long email describing his day to the National Post, the Canadian paper he founded and then lost as his media empire imploded.

"I get up just after 7am except on the weekends and holidays, when it is possible to sleep in," writes Black. "I eat some granola and go to my workplace where I tutor high school-leaving candidates, one-on-one, though sometimes I have to deal with up to four at a time, around my desk, and talk with fellow tutors and other convivial people.

"I lunch around 11am with friends from education, work on e-mails, play the piano for 30 to 60 minutes, return to my tutoring tasks by 1pm, return to my unit at 3pm, deal with more e-mails, rest from 4 to 6pm, eat dinner in the unit then, and go for a walk in the compound or recreation yard for a couple of hours, drinking coffee well-made by Colombian fellow residents, and come back into the residence about 8:30pm, deal with e-mails and whatever, have my shower etc., around midnight, read until 1-1:30 a.m. and go to sleep. On the weekends it is pretty open."

Black, 64, who converted to Roman Catholicism soon after buying the Daily Telegraph, says he continues to pray and attend Mass. He also claims that life in prison is conducive to intellectual pursuits. "In some respects, there is less intrusion here of the irritations of daily life than on the outside," he says.

He does not mention his wife Barbara Amiel, who now divides her time between their homes in Toronto and Palm Beach, Florida, from where she is able to visit him. Nor does he mention George Bush's failure to pardon him before the end of his presidency. But he does have something to say about his former business partner David Radler who, in return for testifying against Black, is already free after spending only 10 months in jail: "We apparently have different values, and I would not change places with him."

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