The Biteback offices are modern. Writing at our modern computers we have modern people with modern views (minus a few exceptions) publishing books about modern issues written by, you guessed it, modern authors. Not wanting to ruin all our hard work by bucking the trend, we did away with pine needles and greenery this year and decided to have modern Christmas trees.
Now, you’d think that, being a publisher of political books, we would, as a team, have heated debates about policy changes, elections and all things serious and politics-related. Unfortunately, we don’t. Instead, we argue over such hot topics as Hob Nobs or Digestives, Apprentice or X-Factor and, most importantly, white Christmas tree or black Christmas tree.
When you’re dealing with two items that are both, basically, frayed plastic coils, you wouldn’t think that words such as “tacky”, “ugly” or “disgusting” could be used as markers of distinction between the two, but they can when it comes to white and black Christmas trees. Whilst the clarity of the white does give it something magical, the black has an obvious darkness that would appeal to anyone looking for a bit of edge in the overwhelmingly happy holiday.
I can pretend to be modern, but maybe it shows that I’m a traditionalist at heart that I would burn them both for the joys of spiky, wilting needles and having to take an awkward trip to the dump to dispose of a brown carcass. (Note: Biteback don’t advise burning plastic trees, or else modern offices turn into hazardous offices.)
In the most important vote of the week (someone told us there was some other vote the other day, to do with education or something, but we weren’t really listening), we are going to find out once and for all... White or Black Christmas Trees? If you would like to be included in this count, please send us your views.