Author: Charles

Chumps hit a bump

16 January 2012
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: Co-operative Funeralcare

Fury in abundance is currently being vented by the good people of Portsmouth against the bungling dolts of The Co-operative Funeralcare. The citizenry is furious that Effcare intend to upgrade their branch in the residential district of Copnor by converting offices into a ‘chapel of rest’ where dead people can be visited by their relatives. 

Residents have put up ‘Stop dead bodies coming to Tangier Road’ posters in their windows and a petition has been gathered with 300 signatures.

Lesley Wood, 64, who lives next to The Co-op funeralcare office, said: ‘I don’t want my grandchildren looking at dead bodies.’

It’s the customary response of any community faced with this sort of thing, and of course it tells us things about societal attitudes to mortality which may not be entirely adult.

After that, things get very odd:

Julie Coleman, 50, of Tangier Road, said: ‘We’ve been told that we won’t see any bodies being put in the parlour because they’ll be covered by a white cloth.

Can anyone tell us what’s going on here, please?

That Effcare should have failed to foresee this and defuse criticism with some sort of pre-emptive charm-and-info campaign defies belief. Or not, as the case may be. 

As for that term chapel of rest…

Full story here. 

Blues dispersal initiative

16 January 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: Humour, Longevity

We’ve just read in the Guardian that today is reckoned to be the most depressing of the year. Gosh. If you are sitting in a puddle of seasonal misery and wretchedness, this may cheer you up:

I recently changed primary care physician. After a comprehensive history and physical exam and a bunch of lab tests, she said I was doing “fairly well for my age.”

I did not like that comment so I asked her: Do you think I will live to 85?

She asked: Do you smoke tobacco or drink alcohol? Oh no, I replied. And I don’t do other drugs either.

She said: Do you have many friends and entertain frequently? I answered: No, I usually stay at home and keep to myself.

She asked: Do you eat rib eye steaks and barbecued pork? I said: No, my other doctor told me all meat is unhealthy.

She asked: Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf, sailing, hiking, or bicycling? No, I don’t, I said.

She persisted: Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex. I said, No, I don’t do any of those things.

So, she looked at me and said, then why do you give a (expletive deleted) whether you will make it to 85?

Source

Talking to the dead

16 January 2012
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: Attitudes to dead bodies

News from Malacca, Malaysia:

The small Gujerati community here fears the final rites practice which involves talking to the dead is dying because the young are not interested.

For one man, who has provided his services to bereaved families over the past 10 years, his only hope is his son.

“I must pass it down as I am getting old. I am afraid there will be no more replacement to manage the funeral rites for the community in future,” said Nishrint Chimanlal Ravichand, 48.

Nishrint, who has performed the last rites at more than 20 funerals, said part of the procedure requires one to talk to the dead.

“With a little practice and understanding of the Hindu scriptures, I am able to do it when conducting the final rites.

“I found that talking to the deceased makes my chores, like bathing and dressing the body, easier,” he said when met at his home in Banda Kaba, a village with heritage status within Malacca city.

Nishrint, who learnt the rites from his father and grandfather, said in most cases, the bodies are stiff and this makes it difficult for him to dress the corpse in white as required for a Hindu funeral.

“I communicate with the dead, requesting the deceased to relax so I can carry out my chores without problems,” he said.

Interesting, that. Here in the UK it is by no means unusual for an undertaker to talk to a corpse while laying it out.

In Malaysia, it seems, there is a superstition that “touching a body could lead to bad luck”. You’ll find a variant of that pretty much everywhere. But they also believe that touching a dead orphan can bring you a jinx.

Why orphans, we wonder?

Heathen on earth

16 January 2012
Charles
16 Comments
Categories: Ritual

Posted by Charles

We’ve talked a lot about ritual on this blog recently and, dang it, we’re going to do it again. 

In an article in the Guardian, philosopher Julian Baggini announces:

I’ve recently started praying … This is, I think, a pretty worthwhile practice and it is not something you can only do if you believe you are talking to an unseen creator. Many stoics did something similar and some forms of meditation serve the same kind of purpose. My version is simply a few minutes of quiet reflection on such matters each morning.

Nevertheless, I do think that prayer, like many rituals, is something that the religious get some real benefits from that are just lost to us heathens. One reason is that many of these rituals are performed communally, as part of a regular meeting or worship. This means there is social reinforcement. But the main one is that the religious context transforms them from something optional and arbitrary into something necessary and grounded. Because the rituals are a duty to our absolute sovereign, there is strong reason to keep them up. You pray every day because you sense you really ought to, and it will be noticed if you don’t. In contrast, the belief that daily meditation is beneficial motivates in much the same way as the thought that eating more vegetables or exercising is. Inclination comes and goes and needs to be constantly renewed.

Also, practices that are created ex nihilo can fail to have the same purchase as those which have a long history and are validated by tradition and doctrine. I once spoke about this and after the talk a woman came up to me and explained how she had tried to instigate a secular grace before her family meals. This is a kind of prayer I feel is particularly valuable. In a world of waste and taken-for-granted western plenty, to remind ourselves of our good fortune before a meal seems to me morally right. The trouble was that as an invented ritual, it seemed artificial, whimsical. In the end, she gave up. Had the family been religious, no one would have had to have asked why are we doing this, and if they had, the reason would have been clear enough, even if it would not stand up to close scrutiny.

We heathens may be proud that we have refused to sell off our reason to pay the unacceptably high price of faith. But we should admit that as a consequence, others are enjoying the rewards of their purchase while we have to make and mend do with alternatives that are adequate, better in some ways, but very possibly inferior overall.

This is a very abridged version of what Baggini wrote. Read the whole article here. 

The example of the invented ritual of the mealtime grace is interesting. It failed, in my opinion, not because it is ‘artificial, whimsical’ but because the woman simply lacked perseverance and conviction. Dammit, I might even take it up myself.

In the context of funerals I think Baggini is plumb wrong about the inferiority of heathen prayer. Prayer can be used for many different purposes: to offer praise, say thank you, beg a special favour, ask for guidance, confess sins, proclaim belief… 

In the context of heathen funerals, the most useful form of prayer might be communal, public declaration. For example, mourners might make a vocal, communal pledge of commemoration. They might also, communally, offer up thanks. 

Heathen funerals tend not to be good at involving audiences. Vocal, unison prayer would help. Only don’t call it prayer, too confusing, call it, erm…

Quote of the day

15 January 2012
Charles
1 Comment
Categories: ashes, Quotes

“The burnt ashes are put into a cremulator that grinds them fine and grinds the bits. Some funeral homes prefer not to grind all the bits out, so that you can see it’s the remains. It’s a bit like peanut butter. Some prefer chunky. Some prefer smooth.”

From an online Q and A with an American funeral director here. 

Secular shiva

15 January 2012
Charles
8 Comments
Categories: Grief, Ritual

 

There’s an interesting article about grieving in the New York Times. The writer describes an accidental discovery of the value of secular shiva.

First, what’s shiva?

Named after the Hebrew word for “seven,” shiva is a weeklong mourning period, dating back to biblical times, in which immediate family members welcome visitors to their home to help fortify the soul of the deceased and comfort the survivors. Though many contemporary Jews shorten the prescribed length, the custom is still widely practiced.

The writer continues:

The “secular shivas” we organized had a number of notable differences that proved crucial to their success. First, we organized them for Jews and non-Jews alike. Second, no prayers or other religious rituals were offered. Third, we held them away from the home of the griever, to reduce the burden. And finally, we offered the grieving party the option of speaking about the deceased, something not customary under Jewish tradition.

The writer lists lessons learned:

*   Don’t wait for the griever to plan.

*   Invite rxmeds hub order cialis super active online only those people that the bereaved person will feel comfortable with.

*   Ask the bereaved person to share a few stories.

*   There is comfort to be taken from a gathering of people, but here’s a caveat:  “Introverts need to grieve, too. For some, a gathering of this kind might be a particular kind of torture.”

The writer concludes:

What I’ve taken away from the experience is a reminder of what I’ve seen often in looking at contemporary religion. Rather than chuck aside time-tested customs in favor of whiz-bang digital solutions, a freshening of those rituals is often more effective. Our “secular shivas” took some advantages of the Internet (e-mail organizing, ordering food online); coupled them with some oft-forgotten benefits of slowing down and reuniting; and created a nondenominational, one-size-doesn’t-fit-all tradition that can be tinkered to fit countless situations.

Like all such traditions, they may not soften the blow of a loss, but they had the unmistakable boon of reaffirming the community itself.

 

Whole article here

Quote of the day

14 January 2012
Charles
2 Comments
Categories: Quotes, Religious funerals

I’ve attended both a religious and a … civil? funeral recently, and the similarities – the sadness of the person’s departure, the commemoration of a life well spent, humour, grief and the gathering together of people who might not otherwise have seen each other in a long time – were far more obvious to me than the differences.

Guardian commenter Jehenna here.

Co-operatives co-operate — up to a point

14 January 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: Co-op, Co-operative Funeralcare

Posted by Charles

If any group of people in a local community wished to establish a funeral service inspired and informed by the principles and ideals of co-operativism, what would their position be with regard to the sixth Rochdale Principle if they found themselves in the circumstance of potentially competing with an established co-op funeral home belonging either to Co-operative Funeralcare or to an independent regional co-operative society? 

6th Principle: Co-operation Among Co-operatives

Co-operatives serve their members most effectively and strengthen the Co-operative Movement by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.

First, a little history. According to a Monopolies and Mergers Commission report dated, I think, 1986, this was the position until midway through the twentieth century:

Each [co-operative] retail society … was formed by local people to serve the interests of their locality and consequently each of them was rooted in and traded in the community from which it originally sprang. Until 1960 boundary agreements existed between individual retail societies which, in effect, restricted them to trading within their particular recognised trading areas. The Co-operative Union, formed in 1869 to establish and organise Co-operative societies, acted as an  ‘arbiter’, according to its rules, in ‘boundary’ disputes between societies. 

In terms of the sixth principle, this makes perfect sense: co-operatives co-operate, therefore they do not compete against each other. 

All this came to an end with the passage of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1956: 

The Restrictive Trade Practices Act 1956 was aimed at preventing traders from entering into anti-competitive arrangements against the public interest. 

At first there was no change: 

Following the passage of the Act, some 200 such ‘boundary’ agreements between Co-operative societies were registered under the Act. 

But in 1960 these boundary agreements were found to be illegal: 

In 1960 the Restrictive Practices Court adjudicated on a boundary agreement between the adjacentDoncasterand Retford Co-operative Societies and declared that the agreement had not overcome the burden of demonstrating that it was in the public interest and that the relevant restrictions on trading outside their respective areas were void. Societies were subsequently advised by the Co-operative Union to terminate any boundary agreements to which they were parties. 

This is why, in case you ever wondered, Funeralcare competes with the funeral businesses of our last remaining independent regional co-ops. 

The Co-operative Funeralcare also has a peculiar habit of advertising the funeral homes of those societies it competes with. It’s been at it for a while. Back in 1986 the Competition Commission noted: 

CWS [Co-operative Wholesale Society, now The Co-operative Group] advertises in newspapers local toClydebank(eg the Glasgow Guardian and Milngavie and Bearsden Herald). CWS also told us that a ‘combined advert’ under which Clydebank was listed as a ‘branch’ of CWS was placed by CWS, without reference to senior management, in the Glasgow Yellow Pages as a favour toClydebank, as that Society could not afford to advertise separately. 

Funeralcare persists  in this eccentric practice, listing, for example, four out of eight Scotmid funeral homes here. 

We asked Scotmid if they knew about this. They didn’t. We asked if they knew why Funeralcare was doing this. They didn’t. We asked why only four out of eight funeral homes were advertised. They had no idea. 

For anyone out there wanting to establish their own funeral co-op, the way is clear. Go for it. You may even get some free advertising from the mother ship.

Monopolies and Mergers Commission report here. 

Thought for the day

14 January 2012
Charles
No comments
Categories: Quotes

For many years, my father was a hairbrush. He, that is the hairbrush, was improbably made of perspex. The real thing died before I got to know him, so I carried this perspex hairbrush around, and it became for me the real thing. I used to kid my disbelieving schoolchums that it was wrought out of the cockpit of a Spitfire, since I had read that these things were made of the same material, and Spitfires were honorific objects on the 50s schoolboy totem. Ever since then I have been interested in ancestries, in authenticity, and in reality. I’ve also had a longstanding sympathy for perspex, which I like as a word, as well as a plastic.

John Hartley here