One planning problem we don’t have over here
Authorities in an eastern Polish city are trying to stop a funeral company from building a crematorium in the same neighborhood as the former German Nazi death camp of Majdanek. Full story.
Thoughts of a funeral-goer
Posted by Lyra Mollington Editor’s note: before reading Lyra’s latest thoughts, it may be helpful to read last week’s Thoughts of a funeral-goer. Whilst everyone else was making their way to the cloisters to look at the flowers, I popped back to have a chat with the young lady chapel attendant. I pretended that I had […]
Buried in a ‘Wasp Rockery’
Posted by Vale Gore Vidal died at the end of July aged 86. Although he would have wanted to be remembered as a writer and thinker, he was perhaps better known as a raconteur and wit with a vicious line in put downs. He had a long feud with writer Norman Mailer and once goaded […]
For the post mortem amusement of…
Posted by Vale Richard Brautigan was a writer and a poet. He died not long ago, which makes this poem very timely. Ed Dorn wrote it ‘for the post mortem amusement of Richard Brautigan’. Let’s hope he is: A B H O R RE N C E S November 10, 1984 Death by over-seasoning: Herbicide […]
Disinherited!
Posted by Vale Once in a while, looking around, it dawns on you that getting to the kitchen has become an obstacle course; setting off for the bedroom an orienteering event. It’s the moment you realise that your books have stopped furnishing your rooms and begun – like a literary occupy movement – to take […]
Suicide note
Posted by Richard Rawlinson I picked up the London Evening Standard today and may as well have logged on to GFG. Of the three cover stories, one was about the health of the nonagenarian Duke of Edinburgh; one about the suspended death sentence of a Chinese woman convicted of murdering a Brit, and another about the […]
The revolution will be televised
A premier-league TV production company (we’re not allowed to say the name) is presently shooting a documentary about the GFG Awards, complete with behind-the-scenes peeks at some of the nominees at work in their own workplace. They want lots of human interest. Some nominees have already been contacted; the rest are advised to stand by. […]
The GFG Awards, 7 September 2012
The GFG Awards will be the first-ever industry awards ceremony. We have received 149 nominations for 14 categories, so it’s a very strong field. More details any time soon. First, though, our thanks to Steve Ancrum and the brilliant team at Sunset Coffins, who are donating funeral Oscars, like the one above, each of which […]
Welcome, Funeral Advisor!
Funeral Advisor is a project of the Natural Death Centre, created by Jon Underwood of Death Café fame. The aim is beautifully simple: to offer to the bereaved the opportunity to review their funeral director in the same way that travellers can review their hotel at TripAdvisor. Check it out here.
Seeing it through
In the summer edition of the Oldie magazine (strapline: ‘Everybody buys it eventually’), Mavis Nicholson discusses the case for the ‘right to die’. She says: I had a conversation with an even more elderly chap than me, a GP all his working life, who was in very bad shape. He said he thought it was […]
