Boxing clever
It’s not just Donald Trump who gives Americans an undeserved reputation for dangerous lunacy. Restrictive practices in the US funeral industry have been doing that for years. In Alabama the owner of a natural burial ground is currently fighting the state law that allows only licensed funeral directors to sell coffins. The burial ground owner, Sheila […]
Psychopathic atheists and atheistic afterlifers
Two new academic studies are likely to engage the interest, and may influence the strategic planning, of undertakers and celebrants. The first tracks the decline of religious belief in America together with the decline of those who identify as spiritual. It discovers, in spite of this, that increasing numbers of Americans believe in an afterlife. Here’s […]
Is your funeral really necessary?
All of a sudden the media has started to take an interest in direct cremation. It’s the death of Anita Brookner wot done it. Here at the GFG we got calls after Bowie was whisked into the flames but little was written. I guess Bowie wasn’t reckoned sufficiently representative of mainstream people to be regarded […]
Last week’s news
We’ve scoured the known universe for the latest from Funeralworld and do you know, we found nothing worth drawing your attention to. Nothing. Have a great week (nonetheless).
Do you know?
Wednesday’s Budget contained the above intriguing announcement. What’s going on here? There may be a clue in the small print of the 2015 Budget (which we clean missed) when the Chancellor announced: The Government will conduct a review into the size and provision of crematoria facilities to make sure they are fit for purpose and […]
Yesterday…
Did you know that the term coffin lid applies to a type of surfboard? http://bit.ly/1p2stFW A much needed new funeral home was opened in Sutton Coldfield by local MP Andrew ‘The Pleb’ Mitchell and NFFD MD William ‘Safe Hands’ Eccleston. The new business has adopted the strapline “here to care for you and your loved ones […]
Yesterday’s news
Iraqi gravediggers are counting their blessings as civil war rages. One said: “To be honest about it, it makes us happy to do this job. We make a lot of money.” Suicide bombers are especially good for business. Another undertaker said “Many are incomplete. It depends what the family find. Sometimes we get just a leg […]
Who cares what you think?
I was rung up last year by a newbie undertaker who wanted the GFG to endorse his business. He had opened up in a small market town which already has a respected and established undertaker. Was he aiming to do anything different? No. Had he worked out the size of the market? No. It wouldn’t […]
Death with Dignity plc
Dignity has just published its results for the 52 week period ending 25 December 2015. You can study them here. Headline figures for readers of this blog are: Profit per funeral: £1045 – a margin of almost 42%. This was in spite of the fact that: “Approximately 24 per cent of the funerals performed in […]
Over to you!
We recently wrote to BBC R4’s Last Word programme suggesting they include more ordinary people – local heroes, we called them – here. We said: “The stories of those of our fellow-citizens who have lived and struggled and won some and lost some are moving and inspiring. All priests and funeral celebrants know this, […]
