And it’s goodnight Vienna from him
Former HGV driver Darren Abey has created a hearse fit for fans of Del Boy and Rodney and is marketing it under the snappy business name of Only Fools and Hearses. Says Mr Abey, ‘I got two scrap cars, both three-wheelers, which weren’t worth anything and only useful for their fibreglass parts. We stripped and […]
Die to let
In Dorset a woman has been billed for £3,000 because her father negligently failed to give his care home 28 days’ notice of his own death. Full story in the Daily Mail here.
Thought for the day
A culture that keeps death out of sight and mind is one that is increasingly lost for words when comforting others in their grief. Instead of having that important conversation in the supermarket with the lady down the street who has lost her husband, we slip down the next aisle with the self-justifying thought that […]
Remembering Dory Previn
Posted by Vale A week or so ago one of my heroines died – the musician, writer and singer Dory Previn. She hasn’t recorded much, but for those who know her work she is unmatched in her musicality, wit, dark humour and willingness to explore the darker parts of the mind and a woman’s experience […]
Cremnivores
Gloucester crematorium’s Arbor restaurant is now offering Sunday lunch. Observes one Gloucester resident wryly: “It seems a bit odd – and perhaps even slightly macabre – for them to be offering roast meat to people, given that their main business is to cremate bodies. I’m not sure I’d like to eat my Sunday roast in […]
Short cuts round the back
Chicago, Monday. Police receive a call about a suspicious person in a car outside Carter Funeral Chapels. They go, and find the back door off its hinges. There is no electricity in the building. It transpires, after investigation, that in winter corpses are left in the garage of this funeral home to keep cool; in […]
Ash Wednesday – buy now!
Posted by Vale Every age has a genius, a spirit, a particular character. The Victorians, for example, excelled at sentimentality and three volume novels, while, in ancient Greece, philosophers lounged on street corners making public nuisances of themselves. But what of our own age? What do we do that defines us? There are lots of […]
Quote of the day
“Anything that doesn’t take years of your life and drive you to suicide hardly seems worth doing.” Writer Cormac McCarthy
No smoke without pyre
Unlike most countries, cigarettes are sold in singles in India and most shops that sell them have electric lighters attached to the wall for their customers to use. An anti-smoking campaigner fitted the lighters with a device which plays the Indian death chant every time someone lights a cigarette. “Raam Naam Satya Hai” is chanted […]
Afterburner
After washing his eyes reddened by a heavy dose of marijuana, Sadhu Premdas steps into the Bagmati river, looking for some half-burnt logs of wood to light a fire at his place. Belonging to the Aghori sect of sages, Premdas does not accept fresh firewood distributed by the Pashupati authority: he loves a fire made […]
