Test drive it first…
Here’s an intelligent, beautifully written piece from Salon magazine in which the writer describes the consequences of his father’s final request No. 5: “My body is to be placed in a plain pine box. I would like my children to make the box.” In his last years my father, the writer William Manchester, told me, […]
Does poetry make nothing happen?
The Tide Recedes The tide recedes, but leaves behind Bright seashells on the sand. The sun goes down, but gentle warmth Still lingers on the land. The music stops, and yet it lingers On in sweet refrain. For every joy that passes Something beautiful remains. MD Hughes What do you think of that little poem? […]
Hollowing out hallowed ground
Some interesting reflections here on humankind’s relationship with the dead human body and the forces of nature. I especially enjoyed the observation that the prairie dogs happily digging in this cemetery are no respecters of social status: they have even dug up a state governor. What deplorable absence of deference so far down the food chain! Hat-tip […]
A Good Send Off
A Good Send Off was the title of this year’s Centre for Death and Society (CDAS) annual conference. Well, part of the title – the snappy part. In full it read: A Good Send Off: Local, Regional & National Variations in how the British Dispose of their Dead. It took place last Saturday in Bath. […]
The Sunset coffin
“Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door.” There’s a funeral industry variant on this saying. Substitute ‘coffin’ for ‘mousetrap’. Last week I went to see Sunset Coffins. Its development is the outcome of a partnership between an environmentally conscious funeral director and ironmonger, Jeremy Clutterbuck, and an engineer, […]
Fooneytunes
There are limitations to blogging. If a post looks overlong people won’t read it. So you need to stick to a single line of argument; you haven’t space to expand or balance. Once you’ve written it you must strip it down, starting with the best bits. As you contemplate clicking Publish, vanity warns you that […]
Sad ha ha
Throughout Funeraland, bothered undertakers, exasperated priests, weathervane secular celebrants, opportunistic accessorisers and furrow-browed academics are inserting their fingers into their mouths, holding them aloft, seeking to determine where the wind of change is blowing from. Funeral consumers give them little to go on. They don’t talk about funerals until they have to arrange one. When […]
Sods’ law
The funeral industry is right to be wary of those who claim to scrutinise it on behalf of consumers. After all, Jessica Mitford did much injury to the American funeral industry with an exposé which held it up to ridicule and focussed on price at the expense of value, and so was actually of very […]
Vile and baseless rumours
Yesterday I reported that rumours are swirling in Funeralland concerning the response of the People’s Undertaker to the release of the IPSOS-Mori funeral price comparison commissioned by the independent funeral directors’ trade association, SAIF — a survey which revealed Co-op charges to be, on average, higher than those in the independent sector despite its enjoyment […]
Memorial of a concentration camp
From the Nameless Dead blog: A 10-meter magnolia tree is planted in the center of Chile’s National Stadium where dictator Pinochet in 1973 imprisoned thousands of political prisoners who were tortured and killed. After planting the tree, the stadium doors are open to the public as a park; offering a space to stop, look again, […]
