It’s time to get rid of this professional fee
I’m off to buy a telly. I’ve done my comparison shopping on the internet (it’s what we do, isn’t it?) and (since you ask) tracked the cheapest to Makro. Good deals on just now. Get down there. Would that I could do the same if I were shopping for a funeral—with some honourable exceptions. AW […]
Laptops Direct: a statement
The Good Funeral Guide has an ethical way with would-be advertisers. They besiege our central London penthouse office suite daily, you know. No, we say, gently but menacingly, we will not take your money and promote your product. Yes, yes, we fully understand that you find it almost impossible to persuade undertakers to offer your […]
Making some sort of sense of it all
Your life experience is unique to you. What you’ve done in your life, what’s happened to you and the sense you’ve made of it all amount to a precious and extraordinary story. Even if you don’t feel the need to write a whole book about it, you almost certainly have a strong desire to pass […]
From rags to riches
Whether or not funerals are too expensive depends on how much money you’ve got and how you like to spend it. Some like to say it with a Batesville casket, mountains of flowers, a fleet of vintage Bentleys, prancing horses, a military band, the Red Arrows—the sky’s the limit. If you’ve got lots of dough […]
Short change
A series of shorts, today. Each is probably worth a post in its own right, but if I don’t get them off my chest now tomorrow will come and they will lie unremembered. First, an interesting editorial in this month’s Funeral Service Journal, the UK’s Dismal Trade mag. It observes that “the spirit of entrepreneurship […]
The good, the bad and the ugly
I was pretty rude last week about AB Walker and Son. Having been so, I fired off an email to Julian Walker offering a platform for a riposte. Within a few days I had a reply. It was a cheery reply, a generous reply: the reply of a man who is confident but not at […]
Letters pray
I enjoyed a long chat with Ieuan Rees this morning about a logo I want him to design for me. He’s a lettercutter, a calligrapher and a sculptor. In case you’ve never heard of him, he is a major celeb in his field. I have long admired him and I am not ashamed to admit […]
Pomp your funeral
There’s nothing like a good funeral procession, a walking funeral procession. It’s a much underestimated component of a good funeral. Regrettably, most people do not bother to have one at all, these days. Only the famous and those who stand for something get proper cortege. And Romanies, of course; they still know how to do […]
Co-operative Funeralcare and the GMB: a response
Here is a response from Phil Edwards, Head of Public Relations at The Co-operative, to the stance which The Good Funeral Guide has taken on Co-operative Funeralcare’s derecognition of the GMB union, which I reproduce unmediated. You should read it together with the statement by the GMB. Dear Mr Cowling, Thank you for the opportunity […]
Death is on everyone’s lips
There’s an interesting piece in Monday’s Guardian by Madeliene Bunting examining the current popular appetite for death, and its focus on, inter alia, Jade Goody, Ivan Cameron, Wendy Richard, and Peter and Penny Duff, who killed themselves in Switzerland. For a full fortnight, it seems, every frontpage story in the Sun was about death. Ms […]
