Alex James

The price is right

Alex James prepares for Christmas.

issue 15 December 2007

The Christmas tree is big enough for the children to climb. The small ones could get lost inside somewhere. Every year that guy gets it exactly right. His expertise is one of the most pleasing things about the run-up to Christmas. The top is an inch from the ceiling. He has an eye for these things. He grows them and he knows them, brings one round on a lorry with bits of rope for lashing it off the banisters. I am a knot man myself, but his tying skills are in a different league, special Christmas-tree knots that fly the thing plumb perpendicular up the festive feng shui leylines. He’s a supreme genius of the spruce genus. Not bad for 50 quid.

Trees belong to the class of things that cost as much as you’re prepared to spend — like pianos. If you’re patient, you can always get a piano for nothing, especially grand pianos.

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