BEACHCOMBER

101 YEARS OLD AND STILL KICKING BISCUITS AROUND...

AS YOU will surely know, we held a referendum more than two years ago on the highly divisive topic of whether Beachcomber should offer biscuits or chocolates to colleagues in the office.

Austerity cuts had forced the abandonment of one or the other, as both sides of the argument accepted, but opinions quickly polarised to form the Bixit camp, wanting to eliminate biscuits, and the Choxit camp of those happy to give up chocolates. The vote resulted in a clear-though-narrow victory for Bixit and negotiations have proceeded since then to find the best way to implement the decision.

I am happy to inform you that 95 per cent of the items requiring resolution, have now been agreed. Only one of the 20 items on the list has yet to be resolved and that is the difficult matter of the border between chocolates and biscuits which depends on clear definitions of both “chocolate” and “biscuit” and, in particular, where chocolate biscuits should stand in the biscuit/chocolate dichotomy.

As you will recall, shortly after the start of negotiations, a two-year implementation period was agreed for phasing out biscuits, during which both chocolates and biscuits would continue to be available. Further to that, we suggested, in our Choquers proposal, that we could satisfy everyone by producing biscuits with an increased layer of chocolate. Presented biscuit side up, these could be seen as biscuits but with the chocolate on top, they could be presented as chocolates with a biscuit base.

Extremists on both sides, however, have unfairly ridiculed this proposal. “This is not what we voted for,” say the Bixit side. “The biscuit content should be reduced to no more than two per cent.”

“Forty-eight per cent of us voted for Choxit,” the other side counter. “In all fairness, you should reduce the chocolate content by 48 per cent.”

Quite apart from that matter, both sides are divided on what they expect. Extreme Bixiteers have opposed the Choquers proposals, suggesting a Canadian model of chocolate blended with maple syrup. Extreme Choxit supporters, however, are inclining towards the Norwegian model of open sandwiches with their morning coffee or afternoon tea instead of either biscuits or chocolate.

Both sides still argue about the wording of the original referendum question and there is some support for another vote to clarify whether the word “chocolate” in the 2016 referendum includes white chocolate, which is not really chocolate at all but is most commonly a mixture of cocoa butter, sugar and milk solids.

Time is short to find a way to avoid a hard Bixit which some say could be so hard that even dunking it in tea will not help. The prospect that a hard Bixit would force us to buy our own snacks on WCBO (World Chocolate Biscuit Organisation) terms is more than many of us can even dare to contemplate.

Beachcomber himself, however, has vowed to leave no biscuit unbaked, no chocolate uneaten and no scone unburned in the quest for a solution.